GNC champs cut down Pines

turnovers and turning them into easy baskets. The big lead assured this would be nothing like the 56-51 win last month where Pines led for much of the game.

“Tonight we said in the first four minutes, let’s go out there and set the tone,” Brown said. “We didn’t go a good job of setting the tone up there. We knew we wanted to come out and set the tone and they did a great job of coming out and doing that.

“We just looked like we were ready to run,” Brown added. “We did a good job of getting in passing lanes and keeping them on a side. We ran the floor. We’ve been talking about that, we need to do that better because we’re capable of it. I think that got us out and going. We scored a lot of easy baskets. Then, obviously, Peyton Kuhn started hitting some 3s and we were able to open it up real quick.”

After getting their 24-point lead in just eight minutes, the Raiders cooled off while Pines continued to play hard and made its run to get within 12. But a big four-second, four-point swing to end the half silenced the run. Logan Baumgartner hit two free throws with 4.3 seconds left, then he tipped away the Eagles’ inbound pass. Baker got to the ball in the corner and got it to Caleb Guden, who hit a 10-foot jumper at the buzzer to send Medford into the locker room with a 41- 25 lead.

Mike Klemett hit a 3-pointer for Northland Pines to open the second half, but Hupf hit two free throws, Kuhn hit a 3 off Baumgartner’s offensive rebound, Hupf sank a 3 from the right corner and he scored again to push the lead to 52-30. Joe Sullivan had a big second half, scoring all seven of his points and Kuhn scored 14 points in the half to cap off his career-high 37-point outing. He made 15 of 27 shots from the field, including five of 13 3-pointers and added four rebounds and four steals.

Hupf had an 11-point, 12-rebound double- double and he had four assists, two steals and two blocked shots.

Baumgartner scored eight points, Baker had seven points, six rebounds and three assists, Guden had four points and two assists and Retterath scored the game’s first basket off a steal and had four rebounds, two assists and two steals. The team’s fifth senior, Owen Wipf, had a rebound, an assist and a steal.

Ryan Muench scored nine points and Nolan Lurvey scored eight for the Eagles (4-7, 7-12). They are two of several sophomores that are poised to lead that program into contender status in the near future.

“They’re going to be a team that really will be at the top of the conference soon,” Brown said. “It will be interesting to see how it goes next year.”