Defensive mindset has Comets basketball off to a fast start

Press Sports Editor
sports@presspublications.com

The Genoa boys basketball team knows how to win close games. They know how to play tough defense for 32 minutes and they know how to win on the road.
The Comets, under the guidance of its first-year coach, Jon Sandwisch, have embraced his philosophy of playing hard-nosed defense and giving 100% for an entire game.
Genoa is 5-0 and 3-0 in the Northern Buckeye Conference. Three of its wins, one of which came in overtime, have been by six points or less.
The most impressive was a 54-48 overtime win over Fostoria, which saw Skylar Ju hit a 3-pointer with 19 seconds to play in the fourth quarter to tie the score at 44-44 and send the game into the extra session. Ju also scored the Comets’ final eight points of the fourth quarter.
Genoa, which trailed 22-10 midway through the second quarter and 24-16 at halftime, got 19 points from Ju, 14 from Walter Plantz and 13 from Jon Huston.
“We played Fostoria for their first home game, and everyone (in the crowd) was excited. Our message to them is, don’t blink, they’re going to go on runs, we don’t have to panic and trust our preparation and trust one another,” said Sandwisch. “When times get tough, we don’t blink and trust one another. That allows us to perform well in pressure situations.
“The biggest thing is this is a team sport and we talk all the time about how much we trust one another and get after one another. We have nine varsity players that I feel confident to be (on the court) during clutch times — it’s a blessing to have a lot of different guys. They’re a mature group; they practice hard and practice well, and I think that translates into games. They hold themselves accountable. They have great leadership amongst themselves, and you can’t ask for too much more as a coach. The character of these young men is impressive. When you do things right, in basketball, as in life, you’re normally rewarded for that.”
Those nine players are Ju, a 6-0 guard; Plantz, a 6-7 forward; Huston, a 5-9 guard; Griffin Meyer, a 5-9 guard; 5-10 guard Robert Messenger; 6-3 forward Andrew Szepiela; 5-11 senior guard Mason Drummond; 6-3 forward Aiden Brunkhorst and 6-2 junior forward Denver Stewart. (Szepiela recently committed to play football at Heidelberg.)
“Of those nine guys, eight are juniors or seniors,” said Sandwisch.
Another impressive road win came in a 48-43 triumph over Ottawa Hills. Ju scored 16 points, Huston had 13 and Plantz chipped in with 10. The Comets also beat rival Eastwood 50-38, in Pemberville, getting 18 points from Ju and 13 from Plantz.
Genoa edged Oak Harbor 48-45, behind 13 points from Brunkhorst in the opener, and also beat Woodmore 58-36.
“If everyone wants to tell us we’re doing a good job, they’re a mature group, they understand that. Every day matters; you can’t waste a day,” said Sandwisch. “If we rest on being 5-0, no one is going to care if we go 5-17. We need to get better, there are a ton of areas where we have to improve.”
For Sandwisch, it starts with his players giving a great effort and executing his defensive philosophy.
“It starts, first and foremost, with how hard the guys are playing and how hard they’re practicing. We haven’t had to question their attitude and effort, we talk about controlling that,” he said. “The buy-in and how hard you play — if you play hard for 32 minutes, a lot of good things are going to happen.
“When I first got the job, that was one of the first things I talked about with the kids, and they’ve bought in 100% (with respect to) our defensive tenacity and effort. We can control how hard we go; when we first started, we struggled with a lot of concepts that we try to implement. We are not even close to our peak.”
The defensive philosophy can be attributed to two former coaches, Zach Alt, who coached the team to great success in recent years, and Matt Routson, the Genoa athletic director who used to coach Eastwood.
“It really goes back to the defense we ran under Coach Alt. Coach Matt Routson is the architect of the defense,” said Sandwisch, a 2012 graduate of Woodmore who played collegiately at Heidelberg. “(Assistant coach) Nick Schmeltz, who is the former girls coach at Eastwood, has put in a lot of time and effort to get us where we’re headed. We’re not there yet, but we’re taking strides to get there.”
Sandwisch’s played quarterback for the Wildcats in high school and also competed on the basketball and baseball teams. His brother, Zach, graduated from Central Catholic in 2016 and played at West Virginia University as a linebacker.