Early success at Stratford not enough; Redmen outscore Cards

RIB LAKE BOYS BASKETBALL

The Rib Lake Redmen came out firing Friday with six quick 3-point makes, but that outside success didn’t last, host Stratford overtook them by halftime and the Tigers pulled away for a 58-45 win.

The Redmen led by as much as nine in the early going by sinking six of their first 10 3-point attempts. In fact, they made those six long-range shots before their first two-point make of the night, a cut and drive to the rack by Michael Borchardt with 4:16 left in the first half that gave Rib Lake a 22-17 lead.

But after that hot start, Rib Lake didn’t get many more uncontested looks against an extended 1-3-1 zone employed by the Tigers and ended eight of 30 from behind the arc overall. Rib Lake only took 17 shots from two-point range, making seven, and only got to the free throw line eight times compared to 18 attempts by the Tigers, who improved to 11-8 overall and 8-6 in the Marawood South with the win.

Rib Lake fell to 11-10 overall and sits at 5-9 in the Marawood North, good for a third-place tie with Chequamegon with two league games left.

Tanner Vlach hit two early 3s and Dominic Quednow added one as Rib Lake led through the first five minutes. Ashton Wrensch tied it at 9-9 with a hoop and harm at the 12:45, though he missed the free throw, and Izaiah Hadlock hit to give Stratford its first lead at 11-9.

Rib Lake went on another shooting spree, getting 3s from Dalen Gebauer, Talon Scheithauer and Jackson Blomberg to go up 20-11. But that lead quickly dwindled to three when Stratford’s Brady Schmidt hit back-to-back triples. Late in the half, Borchardt made a nice bounce pass to Andrew Wudi for an easy bucket to make it 26-22. But Stratford got on the run that turned the game in its favor for good, starting with free throws by Wrensch with 1:59 left, another Wrensch bucket, a 3 from Henry Zaleski with 30 seconds left and then a 3-point dagger from Schmidt with two seconds left that put the Tigers ahead 32-26.

The Tigers extended that run to 18 straight points by getting the first four buckets of the second half to lead 40-26 before Rib Lake started chipping away. A Wudi 3-pointer finally got Rib Lake going again. An 8-0 run got the Redmen within 40-34 with 13:20 left. Both teams had trouble getting shots to fall for a lengthy stretch, but Stratford got two key baskets with a Schmidt tip-in and then a Wrensch 3 that made it 48-36 with 7:57 left. Borchardt hit a 3 to make it 4839 with 6:42 to go. Wudi scored at the end of a transition chance to pull the Redmen within 51-45 with about 1:30 left, but that was the end of Rib Lake’s scoring and the Tigers iced it from there from the free throw line.

Borchardt led Rib Lake with 11 points. Wudi scored nine and added seven rebounds. Vlach and Blomberg both scored six points. Blomberg had eight rebounds and six asissts. Vlach had six rebounds and three assists. Quednow scored seven points and grabbed six rebounds. Scheithauer and Gebauer finished with three points apiece. Gebauer had three rebounds.

Wrensch led the Tigers with 20 points and Schmidt added 18. The Tigers only shot 37% from the field (20 of 54), but they took good care of the basketball with just seven turnovers, which didn’t allow the Redmen to get out and run much. Re-bounds were close with Rib Lake holding a 36-33 edge.

Rib Lake is back on the court Friday when it hosts Abbotsford in a Marawood North matchup at 7:15 p.m. The Redmen will host Colby Tuesday in a rescheduled non-conference game and then close out the regular season Feb. 23 at Prentice.

Rib Lake 76, Crandon 68

On Thursday, Rib Lake burned Crandon’s 3-2 zone from the outside with six 3-point shots from Vlach, plus they were able to pass and cut through it for plenty of open inside looks in a high-scoring 76-68 non-conference win over the Cardinals.

Vlach hit five of his 3s in the first half alone, helping push Rib Lake to a 43-31 halftime lead. That lead grew to 19 points early in the second half before the Cardinals made a big run to cut the lead to five with eight minutes to play, but that was as close as they got while falling to 5-13 at the time.

“It helps when you’re hitting the 3s in the first half,” Rib Lake head coach Todd Henderson said. “We struggled with their press a little bit (in the second half), just got into a hurry at times and rushed some things. They’re a hard team to scout, there’s not a lot of information online and stuff. Their record is not that great, but I think they’re a better team than their record shows. They have some athletes that hustle and work hard.”

Rib Lake had four players score at least 13 points, led by Vlach’s 20. Blomberg added 18, 12 of which came in the second half, Quednow hit three 3-pointers and scored 13 points and Andrew Wudi also scored 13.

Crandon’s only lead was 2-0, but the Cardinals did a nice job of fighting back from an early 13-4 hole to get within 1916. Konner Keao led that charge with a 3-pointer, an inside score off a Jaxon Keepers assist and then an offensive putback. But Vlach, who already had one 3, found his 3-point groove by knocking down four more in the last four minutes of the half, including one with two seconds left to extend the lead to 12.

Quednow hit a triple, Vlach found Blomberg on the baseline for an easy score and then a four-point possession gave Rib Lake a 52-36 lead three minutes in. Wudi scored and was fouled. He missed the free throw, but Blomberg got the rebound, got fouled and made both free throws. Vlach followed that up with his final 3-pointer to make it 55-36 with 14:04 to go.

Crandon found some 3-point success as well with Logan Gretzinger and Keepers both knocking one down. The Cardinals went to some full-court zone pressure midway through the half, got a couple of turnovers and then got back to going inside offensively to climb back in it. They made it 60-55 with a three-point play by Devin Headson and a bucket from Hayden Gretzinger.

“They didn’t have much of a size advantage in there,” Henderson said. “But they made some good passes in there and good plays.”

Wudi threaded nice passes to Blomberg and Borchardt, plus he hit two bonus free throws with 5:18 left to push Rib Lake’s lead back to nine at 66-57. Blomberg rebounded another missed free throw, this one by Vlach, and stuck it back in with 2:14 left to make it 71-59 and Vlach assisted Wudi for a layup to seal it at 73-62.

Gebauer got eight points inside off the bench for Rib Lake and Borchardt added four points in the win. Wudi grabbed six rebounds, while Blomberg, Vlach and Gebauer had five each and Borchardt had four. Wudi dished out eight assists, Vlach had six and Blomberg had four. Vlach and Wudi had two steals each.

Rib Lake shot an impressive 55.1% from the field (27 of 59), including nine of 19 from 3-point range. Crandon shot a solid 48.3%, including 25 of 45 on twopoint shots.

Crandon also put four players in double digits, led by Headson’s 19 points. Omar Bailey scored 16, Logan Gretzinger had 13 and Keepers finished with 11.