The Auburn Bulldogs opened the Class C1-1 subdistricts at Johnson-Brock High School Monday night, Feb. 18, with a 68-35 win over Conestoga.
Auburn raised its record to 4-18 while Conestoga ended its season 1-22.
The Bulldogs played top-seed Falls City, 21-3, in the subdistrict semifinals Tuesday, Feb. 19. The winner plays the winner of Syracuse, 7-14 vs. Louisville, 8-13, Thursday, Feb. 21, at 7 p.m. at Johnson. The subdistrict winner plays the winner of Subdistrict C1-2 Monday, Feb. 25, at a site to be determined by representatives of the participating schools. Subdistrict C1-2 schools, with records entering Feb. 19 play, are: Ashland-Greenwood, 11-10; Lincoln Christian, 14-9; Lincoln Lutheran, 13-10 and Raymond Central, 14-8.
Coach Roth’s Comments
“The guys came out pretty determined to get to the next round. I felt like we came out with a lot of energy and focus,” Bulldogs Coach Bryce Roth said.
“It was a complete team effort and we did a great job of getting out and pressuring Conestoga and converting off of some of their mistakes. We had some very balanced scoring and even had four of our guys in double figures –Kamron Fender, Patrick Frary, Tyler Collin and Caleb Nelson. We had a lot of other guys step up and play well also. I thought TJ Wynn and Easton Dauel did a fantastic job defensively with shutting down Conestoga’s top scorer which definitely made it difficult for them to get going.
“We definitely will need to play much better vs Falls City to earn the chance to move on. We had too many unforced turnovers and we made some very silly mistakes on the defensive end.”
Fender led the Bulldogs with 17 points; Frary scored 13; Collin, 12 and Nelson, 11. Also scoring for Auburn were: Wynn, 5 points; Dauel and Jared Frenzel, 3 each; and John Lambert and Dallas Yates, 2 apiece.
Nelson grabbed 7 rebounds to lead Auburn, while Lambert had 6. Other rebounders were: Fender and Wynn, 4 each; Collin, Dauel and Donavan Halfhill, 3 each; Frary and Frenzel, 2 apiece; and Yates, 1.
Collin led Auburn with 4 assists. Fender had 3; Dauel, 2 assists; and Frary, Lambert, Ian Miller, Nelson and Wynn, 1 assist each.
Collin also led the Bulldogs in steals with 4. Fender and Nelson each had 3 steals; Frary, Wynn and Yates, 2 steals each; and Dauel and Halfhill, 1 steal each.
Auburn shot 24-of-41 from two-point range; 3-of-11 on three-pointers; and was 11-of-19 from the free throw line. Conestoga hit 11-of-24 from two-point range; 3-of-15 on three-pointers; and made 4-of-8 free throws.
The Bulldogs outrebounded Conestoga, 35 to 13.
Auburn and had 19 turnovers, compared to 27 for Conestoga.
Scoring by Quarters:
Conestoga    8-6-7-14--35
Auburn    17-15-18-18--68