Pirates get some offense in seasonending losses to Clear Lake, Cadott

WIAA DIV. 5 BOYS BASKETBALL

While they simply weren’t going to be able to match Clear Lake’s offensive firepower Tuesday, the Gilman Pirates finished their 2021-22 season by continuing to show signs of scoring improvement during an 89-32 defeat to the top-seeded Warriors in a WIAA Division 5 regional quarterfinal.

The Pirates didn’t knock down any 3s, but they drove to the rim at times and got points that way. They took advantage of some offensive rebounding opportunities to put some points on the board, especially in the first half. In all, four players scored at least seven points to give the Pirates some balance in their final outing of the year.

While improving to 23-2 and earning a spot in Friday’s regional semifinal against eighth-seeded McDonell Central (12-13), Clear Lake had little trouble on the offensive end, racing out to a 59-20 halftime lead and putting four players in double figures.

Jacob Burbach led the way with 19 points, while 6-5 senior forward Riley Peterson added 18, Will Cain hit a trio of 3-pointers while scoring 11.

The Warriors’ other 6-5 senior, Tyson Blanchard, only had three points, but he did a terrific job of distributing the basketball, getting some assists on transition outlet passes and several others from the top of the key to teammates that were cutting through Gilman’s 2-3 zone in halfcourt sets.

Caleb Marion, who led Gilman (0-23) with nine points, got the team’s first bucket to answer Cain’s game-opening 3 and Zack Marion got the rebound off a shot by Caleb Marion that was blocked and put it in, keeping the Pirates within 11-4 early on.

Clear Lake got separation quickly after that. Blanchard hit a cutting Peterson, Peterson hit a cutting Burbach, Andrew Campion sank a 3 and Burbach got a steal and layup to make it 23-4 with 12:23 left in the half.

Branden Ustianowski got on a nice scoring run for the Pirates in the middle of the half, scoring all seven of his points in that span including a nice mid-range floater and a three-point play. Zack Marion added his second basket of the half to make it 47-18 and Caleb Marion stuck back a Zack Marion miss for the Pirates’ last basket of the half.

Grady Kroeplin scored Gilman’s first six points of the second half including a couple of nice drives and finished with eight points. Zack Marion got Gilman’s last two hoops and also finished with eight in his final basketball game in a Pirates’ uniform. He and Dominic Franzen, a first-year player with the program, are the team’s graduating seniors.

Cadott 60, Gilman 34

Gilman’s regular season ended Thursday

with a 60-34 loss to visiting Cadott in the eighth-place game of the Cloverbelt Conference crossovers.

Cadott’s Braden Schneider was a handful, scoring all 12 of his points in the first half as the Hornets ran out to a 34-14 halftime lead. The Hornets hit four 3-point shots to widen their lead in the half with two of them coming from Jordan Peters.

The Pirates picked things up offensively and defensively in the second half and were only outscored by six, 26-20, in the second half as six players found the scoring column for the Pirates.

Senior center Zack Marion led Gilman with eight points in his final appearance on the home floor. He scored twice from the field in both halves.

Ustianowski and Caleb Marion scored six points apiece, while Kroeplin and Dalton Wisocky scored five each. Each of those two Pirates sank a second-half 3-pointer.

Brayden Olynick added a bucket in each half to score four points.

Cadott hit six 3-pointers overall to outscore Gilman 18-6 from 3-point range and made 14 of 24 free throws compared to Gilman’s four of eight.

Cadott got nine points apiece from Tegan Ritter and Ryan Sonnentag and finished the regular season with a 6-18 overall record. The Hornets were 1-13 in the Western Cloverbelt.

The Western side went 6-2 in the crossovers. Fall Creek won an 86-85 thriller over Columbus Catholic in Saturday’s championship game, while Stanley-Boyd beat host Neillsville 58-53 in the secondplace game. Owen-Withee beat McDonell Central 64-50 in the fourth-place game and Spencer got the East’s other win, beating Osseo-Fairchild 62-40 in the sixth-place game.