St. Vincent John Wibbenmeyer swiped the ball from Leopold’s Mason Deck at half court and took the ball up with a authority with a nice two-handed slam to start the fourth quarter. That put St. Vincent up 13 points and put a stamp on a big night from the senior.
Wibbenmeyer scored 27 points, including 21 in the second half, as he led St. Vincent to a 68-57 victory over Leopold on Jan. 19.
“That’s probably one of the few dunks that I remember from one of my guys at home,” Sr. Vincent coach Bruce Valleroy said. “That definitely pumped everybody up.”
That was the culmination of what Valleroy called a nice “rebound game” after a tough loss to Oran a few days earlier.
“Leopold is a tough team that has played a lot of good teams,” Valleroy said. “Their record may not be impressive, but this was a big game for district seeds.”
St. Vincent led 34-25 at the half, but Leopold (6-7) came out with a flurry of threes that cut the lead to five on three occasions.
St. Vincent (11-3) had a answer each time, hitting 3-pointers on a regular basis, none for important than the triple from Kannen Reiss from the wing at the third quarter buzzer that gave St. Vincent a 55-42 lead. It was Reiss’ only shot of the game.
“Those shots at the end of the quarter are huge,” Valleroy said. “It couldn’t have happened to a harder worker than Kannen.”
That type of offense was a hold over from the first half when Evan DeWilde got the Indians off to a good start. The junior hit his first two 3-point attempts and had 15 points in the opening half. He finished the game with 19.
“Wibbenmeyer and DeWilde were big for us tonight,” Valleroy said. “You need those type of performances when you play quality teams.”
