Youthful Salem grows up fast in impressive victory over Lapeer

Salem’s boys basketball team may not be super-tall or super-experienced, but down the stretch of Tuesday night’s game against visiting Lapeer, the Rocks were super, man.

With just over four minutes remaining, Salem’s 30-17 halftime lead had almost completely evaporated as the Lightning closed to within 46-43.

An all-net baseline jumper by 5-foot-9 junior Darrell Williams and two clutch jump shots by 5-11 junior Luke Creighton — the first a no-hesitation triple — expanded the hosts’ lead to 53-45 with just 2:12 left, sealing the deal on a 61-50 victory.

Salem, whose starting five doesn’t include a single senior, improved to 2-2. Lapeer slipped to 3-2.

(To check out video highlights from Tuesday’s game, click here.)

Young players ‘meshing well’

“Our guys are meshing well; they get along well,” said Salem Head Coach Ryan Nimmerguth, when asked about his team’s rotation, which includes just one senior. “They’re learning about playing high school basketball on the fly.

“These guys have basketball experience, but high school basketball and KLAA basketball is different than probably what they’re used to. We’re learning as we go, which is what the non-conference is for.”

Offensively, the Rocks were paced by 5-6 sophomore guard Landen Stone, who poured in 16 points, including two first-quarter threes that helped his team build an early 13-8 lead. (Check out Landen Stone’s slick coast-to-coast bucket by clicking here.)

Fellow sophomore Mitch Paspal, who, like Stone, logged significant minutes last season as a freshman, contributed 13 points.

Lightning’s 1-2 punch

Senior Aiden Farner (16) and junior Will Fisher (15) accounted for 60% of the Lightning’s offensive output.

While Nimmerguth praised his young team’s clutch fourth-quarter shooting — “Darrell can shoot the basketball and Luke is a really good shooter when he’s set and in rhythm” — he credited another facet of the game for helping the Rocks repel Lapeer’s second-half comeback bid.

“Ultimately, it was our defense that got our lead back up after Lapeer made their second-half run,” Nimmerguth said. “We started getting stops in the fourth quarter that we weren’t getting in the third.

“I was impressed with our big guys’ toughness inside. I liked how Mitch, Liam (Reynolds), Jaxson (Wisniewski) and Nye Turner battled to get rebounds.

Zone adjustments

“Lapeer was playing a zone defense, which we haven’t faced much this season. So we worked through that. It took a while for the guys to change their mindset about how to attack the zone, but we eventually figured it out.”

Salem put the exclamation point on its victory when Paspal delivered a slick dime to Nye Turner, whose layup with 90 seconds to play stretched the Rocks lead to 55-47.

Ed Wright can be reached at 734-664-4657 or edwright@socialhousenews.com.