Warrior boys endure three-game losing streak
Evan Pensel drives to the basket between NFV defenders. (Photos by Bev Hamann)
Tommy Seeland looks to pass the ball against NFV.
By Willis Patenaude, Times-Register
“We continued to come out slow to start the games, especially against Waterloo Christian and Clayton Ridge. We mixed up our starting rotations Tuesday and Friday and we will continue to reevaluate after each game, to weigh our options and see what gives us the best chance to come out strong to start games moving forward. We battled and continued to scratch and crawl our way back to keep things competitive for the majority of those games.”
That is how head coach Brady Stramer summed up this past week for the Central boys basketball team, which suffered three straight losses. It’s their third three-game losing streak of the season.
It started with a 48-43 loss against the Waterloo Christian Regents, who got off to a 16-8 opening period. While the Warriors desperately tried to make a comeback, even out-scoring Waterloo Christian 16-12 in the third period, the lead was insurmountable.
Offensively, the Warriors attempted nine more shots than Waterloo Christian, but made 34.7 percent compared to 42.5 percent for the Regents. However, the Warriors also attempted nine fewer free throws, as the team’s 20 fouls led to Waterloo Christian being gifted 16 attempts, 11 of which they made.
“Waterloo Christian came out and made some tough perimeter shots to take a 16-8 lead at the end of the first quarter. We made some defensive adjustments…ending the first half down 14-21. We finally started to make some shots in the third quarter, especially Hazen Loan, who was able to hit some tough shots for us, which helped eventually tie the game in the third quarter. We didn’t execute at a high enough level offensively in the fourth quarter. That, along with some turnovers that led to easy buckets for them, was the difference in the end,” Stramer said.
Loan led the way offensively, with 21 points, followed by Ashton Burroughs coming off the bench with seven. Evan Pensel scored five points, while fellow starters CJ Polkinghorn and Parker Vaughn added three each.
Pensel led the team in assists, with five, and Vaughn finished with three.
Rebounds were in short supply, but Abenet Lammers and Loan led the team with five each, followed by Dan McGreal with four and Polkinghorn with three.
“I thought we played a good second half, out-scoring them for the last three quarters. But, as has been the case for the majority of our games this year, one quarter really hurt us,” Stramer remarked.
It was a similar story against Clayton Ridge, as the Warriors dug themselves a deep hole, going down 17-8 in the first period. They managed to keep pace with the Eagles in the second and third periods, but Clayton Ridge poured it on in the fourth, out-scoring the Warriors 17-7 and winning the game 59-38.
The Warriors again struggled to find open shots, shooting just 36.6 percent from the floor, but they did shoot 31.8 percent from behind the arc, making seven of 22. Central made more threes than Clayton Ridge attempted, but they could not slow down the Eagle offense, which shot 50 percent from the field, including 12 more free throws.
Loan led the offense with 16 points, followed by Vaughn with nine, Pensel with seven and Tommy Seeland with four. Pensel and Vaughn also had four assists each, and Loan led the team with five rebounds. Parker Smith came down with four boards, and Pensel, Vaughn and Lammers all had two rebounds.
The game ultimately came down to rebounding and turnovers, as the Warriors were out-rebounded 29-19 and the Eagles forced 18 turnovers.
“We struggled to take care of the ball in the first quarter, which led to the low amount of points scored. On the defensive end, we played man to man defense, but did a poor job of moving from help defense to stop straight line drives to the hoop, which allowed them to get some easy points in the paint. Unfortunately for us, we couldn’t get enough defensive stops to remain competitive throughout the end of the game,” Stramer said.
The week ended against the conference-leading North Fayette Valley TigerHawks, who easily defeated the Warriors 64-40, holding the Warriors to fewer than 10 points in two different periods. It was a combination of tough shooting for the Warriors and stellar defense by the TigerHawks, who forced 16 turnovers and finished with 13 steals and four blocks. Central was also out-rebounded 37-27 and the defense allowed three double-digit scorers for NFV.
The Warriors finished with one scorer in double digits, Loan, who tallied 12 points on 14 shots. McGreal added eight points, while Smith finished with seven and Polkinghorn and Elliot Kelly each had four.
Pensel added five assists to the stat line, and Loan and McGreal each had two. Loan also led the team in rebounds, with eight, followed by Kelly with five and Pensel with three.
“We did our best to pack in the paint and try to limit their posts from getting easy, near-the-basket shots. I felt, for the most part, we did a good job of this, but when you pack in the paint, you allow more open shots from the perimeter. NFV shot the ball well from three-point range throughout the game, making 9-21. The combination of good shooting and strong post presence was hard for us to stop. Offensively, we struggled to hit perimeter shots, and didn’t do a good enough job of getting the ball into the middle of their zone defense as we have focused on in practices,” Stramer said.
The Warriors have a tough slate this week. They’ll travel to Turkey Valley on Tuesday, Jan. 26, before hosting Kee on Thursday, Jan. 28. Central ends the week at South Winneshiek on Friday, Jan. 29.
