Chapin's late shot wins it for Norwalk

SANDUSKY -- Sometimes you have to speak it into existence. At halftime, Norwalk's Garrett Chapin encouraged his teammates, telling them that they were not going to lose on the road to Sandusky. Consider it done. The senior hit the game-winning jumper with 34 seconds to go, then the Truckers fended off Sandusky at the end to escape with a pivotal 51-49 Sandusky Bay Conference Lake Division win. "Our theme this week and for the last two weeks has been to find a way to win," Norwalk coach Steve Gray said. "We hung around." The jumper by Chapin gave Norwalk (4-5, 3-0 Lake) its first lead of the fourth quarter, but Sandusky (1-3, 1-3) had a chance. The Blue Streaks ran the clock down to 22 seconds before calling a timeout. Sandusky moved the ball around before a corner 3-pointer by Israel Fletcher clanked off the rim. Ommarion Grandberry grabbed the rebound, but his attempt was no good. The ball bounced around as the final seconds ran off the clock, securing the win for the Truckers. "We talked about not giving up straight-line drives," Gray said. "We had to be able to help and recover, and if we got beat we had to sprint to the back-side block because whoever had the ball was going to shoot it." Sandusky associate head coach Dustin Nejedly, who coached in place of an absent Colin Irish, said he thought his squad had the opportunity, but a lack of execution hurt the Blue Streaks. "We were looking to get into some pick-and-roll action with Davion (Henry) and Jarrein (Alexander)," Nejedly said. "We did not execute. It might have been there, but we did not execute coming out of the timeout." Sandusky suffered shooting woes at the free-throw line. The Blue Streaks made just 7-of-17 attempts, including a lackluster 4-of-10 in the final eight minutes. "Trust me, it is not from a lack of practice," Nejedly said. "We shoot free throws quite a bit throughout the week, but tonight was not our night from the free-throw line. In a two-point game, it definitely sticks out." The Truckers led 33-28 with 3:59 left in the third quarter, but Sandusky used a 11-0 run -- capped on back-to-back scores from Kye Scott -- to take a 39-33 lead into the final eight minutes. "We wanted to pick up the pressure and play at our tempo," Nejedly said. "We wanted to dictate tempo and for a lot of the game, we did." Alexander paced Sandusky with 13 points while Fletcher scored 10 points. Daylen Green added eight points before leaving the game with an injury with 50 seconds left in the third quarter. "I cannot fault the kids' effort," Nejedly said. "They played hard for 28 out of the 32 minutes. I thought for the most part, we played really hard tonight." Norwalk was led by Chapin's 26 points and 12 rebounds. Will Gehlhausen added 15 points for the Truckers, who are back in action Saturday when they host Bellevue (0-4, 0-2) in SBC Lake play. NORWALK (4-5, 3-0) Andrew Mozina 0 0-0 0, Will Gehlhausen 6 1-1 15, Ian Minor 1 0-0 2, Garrett Chapin 11 4-8 26, Caleb Sommers 2 0-0 4, Kyler Kromer 1 0-0 3, Carson Bauman 0 1-2 1. TOTALS 21 6-11 51 SANDUSKY (1-3, 1-3) DeMar Moore 0 0-0 0, Daylen Green 3 2-2 8, Israel Fletcher 4 0-0 10, Omarrion Grandberry 2 0-0 4, Davion Henry 0 2-4 2, Jarrein Alexander 4 3-4 13, Malaky Johnson 3 0-1 6, Kye Scott 3 0-5 6. TOTALS 19 7-17 49 Norwalk 9 13 11 18 -- 51Sandusky 14 10 15 10 -- 49 Three-point goals -- Norwalk 3 (Gehlhausen 2, Kromer 1); Sandusky 4 (Alexander 2, Fletcher 2)