WLDS/WEAI Chatter for Winchester Invitational Tournament - January 13th
WINCHESTER CHATTER - ISSUE #3 - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - DAY 4 - ISSUE #3
Carrollton has won the last four meetings with North Greene in the tournament. The two teams last played here in 2001 when the Hawks won the third-place game 40-34. North Greene's last win against Carrollton in the tournament was in the 2001 semifinals.
Pleasant Hill is trying to snap a 14 game tournament losing streak. The Wolves last win here came in 2008 when they beat Waverly 56-37.
Brown County and Triopia have played just once since the Hornets rejoined the tournament field in 2005. The Hornets beat Triopia 62-52 in a consolation game in 2009.
There are a couple of clean up items from last year’s tournament that we thought were worth mentioning. Michael Blewitt of Liberty climbed to the 13th spot on the tournament career scoring list with 208 points. That’s trails Ben Goetten of Carrolton by 16, and is just ahead of John Janvrin of North Greene and Mark Kroencke of Liberty. Cody Hildebrand of Payson finished in the 22nd spot on the all-time list, 4 behind Jared Garner of Greenfield, and one ahead of Leo Anslyn of Winchester and Greg Hatcher of West Pike. By the way, lest we forget, Janvrin still holds the single game scoring record in a Winchester Invitational Tournament game. He had 46 in one of the games in 1969.
Winning teams have scored just 544 points in this year’s tournament, an average of about 55 and a half a game. Losing teams are at just over 36 points a game, meaning there have been many more double digit wins than not. The average winning margin is close to 19 points a game. There have been just three games involving single digit wins.
This year’s tournament has lost a bit of luster with injuries to key players on two teams, and three other players missing action due to disciplinary action. Greenfield/Northwestern found out this week that leading scorer Austin Plogger is done for a while with broken bones in his foot. And, North Greene’s Connor Vincent reportedly suffered broken bones in his left wrist Saturday, meaning he is done for a while. West Central is already playing without Colin Slagle, and Routt is without Joe Nix and John Garde due to off court issues.
The new number to shoot at for tournament leading scorer honors is 40. Drew Burwinkel of Payson followed up his 33 performance in game one with 7 points last night. Hot on his trail is Michael mast, who scored 26 last night in the loss. That’s good for 39 this year. Matt Muller of Porta/AC added 20 to his total last night, and is now at 37.
The last time The Winchester Invitational Tournament did not see an upset through the first 10 games of the tournament was in 2010. That stretch lasted one more game, 11 before the tourney saw its first upset. But, worry not, you who like the surprises! In 2010, there were 8 upsets in the final 15 games that year in the WIT.
As usual, a big Thank you to Kent Coultas. The WIT historian feeds me facts and observations throughout the tourney, many of which are used
in these chatters. Another big thank you goes out to Jeff and Gina Hurrelbrink, who are providing the fine eats for the hospitality room here.
Need to feed a group in the future, consider Jeff’s Country Smokehouse
