Boys Basketball: Kouts holds on for ‘gutty’ win

Updated: February 17, 2012 10:32PM

CEDAR LAKE — Baffled. Confused. You pick a description.

Kouts’ Max Everaert truly didn’t have a specific answer as to how his defensive strategy worked on Nick Bollenbacher.

“I don’t really know, he’s much quicker than me,” Everaert, who led Kouts with 27 points, said following the final stop in a nail-biting 81-80 win over host and PCC rival Hanover Central on Friday night.

Kouts may have mixed its size under the boards and rugged defensive tactics on Bollenbacher (one of the area’s leading scorers) en route to a 41-29 first half advantage, but Everaert’s expression isn’t surprising, given the circumstances. After all, Bollenbacher improved from 10 points in the first 16 minutes, to score 28 more after the break (finishing with a game-high 38). And with this charge, the Wildcats kept chipping away at the deficit until late into the fourth when they grabbed a couple of small leads and kept the score close.

“We wanted to change our offense, so we had a lot of cutting action at the baseline,” Hanover coach Rod Bollenbacher said.

Kouts’ (14-3, 6-0) ability to capitalize, however, helped give the Mustangs a share of the PCC title in a game that could’ve also kept the Wildcats (10-7, 5-2) in contention. With about 45 seconds left on the clock and Kouts leading 78-76, Hanover was whistled for a foul and then the referee also gave Bollenbacher a technical. Kouts went 3-of-4 on those free throws.

Then, in the last few seconds, Hanover was in possession and tried to work it around the horn. But Kouts thwarted the final 3-point attempt. It was the shot the Everaert helped keep out of the hands of strong perimeter shooter Bollenbacher (who had two 3s in the second).

“A good, hard, gutty, team win,” Kouts coach Marty Gaff said.

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