RIB LAKE BOYS BASKETBALL - Wins at Chequamegon, Newman put Redmen close to title

RIB LAKE BOYS BASKETBALL

The first major goal the Rib Lake Redmen set at the start of the season –– a Marawood North Division championship –– is now within sight.

Rib Lake survived a bit of a second-half scare but defeated the conference’s cellar dweller Chequamegon 68-57 Monday and, in the process, stretched its lead over second-place Prentice to three games with four to play. At 9-3 in Marawood play and 16-4 overall, Rib Lake is in position to clinch at least a North Division title share Friday if it can beat visiting Stratford in the final Marawood crossover game of the season. A win, plus a Prentice loss to Newman Catholic Friday would clinch the outright title.

If the outright title isn’t clinched Friday, the Redmen’s next opportunity has Prentice coming to Rib Lake on Feb. 16. In fact, Rib Lake’s last four games, all Marawood games, will be played at home.

A win Monday seemed in hand when the Redmen cut, passed, rebounded and shot their way to 47 first-half points and a 23-point halftime lead over the Screaming Eagles, who fell to 3-15 overall and 1-11 in league play with the loss. Rib Lake shot 50% from the field in the half (17 of 34).

Jackson Blomberg caught fire early, scoring 15 points in the first eight minutes to spark Rib Lake to a quick 25-13 lead. Donovan Sutherland had a basket and a three-point play inside off a brilliant pass by Andrew Wudi along the baseline, while Seth Borchardt drained a 3-pointer and got a three-point play off a steal to make it 39-24 with 2:35 left in the half. Blomberg drove for a hoop and was fouled on a 3-point try and made two free throws to finish the half with 19 points. With 3.5 seconds left, Chequamegon inbounded the basketball under its own hoop. The inbound pass was deflected by Talon Scheithauer. He quickly chased the ball down near the corner, fired a pass toward Borchardt, who saved it under the basket and flipped it to Dominic Quednow for a score at the buzzer.

Things changed, however, in the second half and the spark for Chequamegon came from crashing the offensive boards. The Screaming Eagles grabbed 15 offensive rebounds in the half after having just one in the first half. Three rebound baskets were part of an 11-4 spurt that got the Eagles within 51-35. AJ Morgan had two of those in a row. Marcus Purdy hit a 3, Morgan sank two free throws after getting fouled on another putback try and Cooper Michalski buried a triple. Suddenly, Rib Lake’s big lead was down to eight at 51-43.

Chequamegon whittled the lead down to seven on three occasions, the last being a Michalski bucket that made it 57-50, when Rib Lake finally regained control. Borchardt and Blomberg scored and Wudi got a big three-point play off a steal for a 64-50 lead with 3:40 left. Six straight points got Chequamegon back within eight, but a big inside score from Borchardt with just over a minute remaining made it 67-57 and allowed the Redmen to breathe easy once again.

Blomberg finished with 23 points, while Sutherland continued his recent strong run with 14 points and Borchardt added 12. Wudi and Scheithauer scored six points apiece, Quednow fought foul trouble and was held to four points, while Jed Henderson added three.

Sutherland led Rib Lake with seven rebounds, while Blomberg had six and Scheithauer had five. Wudi had seven assists. Sutherland was a problem for Chequamegon at the top of Rib Lake’s 1-31 zone with 10 defensive deflections.

Michalski scored 23 points to lead Chequamegon, who also nearly upset 15-5 Stratford Friday, falling 46-43 on the Tigers’ home court. Morgan powered his way to 15 points.

Rib Lake went a perfect 5-0 in road games against North Division foes this season.

Rib Lake 66, Newman 39

An efficient night on offense combined with a defensive stretch that shut host Newman Catholic out for nearly eight minutes pushed the Redmen to a 66-39 blowout win over the Cardinals Friday night.

The scoreless stretch covered the last 1:20 of the first half and the first 6:25 of the second half. In that time, Rib Lake outscored Newman 13-0 to stretch a 33-21 lead to 46-21. The Redmen weren’t threatened from there and easily earned their second Marawood crossover win of the season.

Offensively, Rib Lake averaged a solid 1.18 points per possession, shot 55.8% from the field (29 of 52) and kept its turn- overs fairly low with 10. The Redmen had 17 assists on their 29 field goals and didn’t need to shoot much from the outside, scoring 50 points in the paint.

Rib Lake opened the game in its 1-3-1 zone, along with some light full-court pressure, but Newman hit three 3s against it to stay close at 12-9. Switching to man-to-man half-court defense midway through the first half helped tilt the game in Rib Lake’s favor.

A 15-5 spurt pushed the lead to double digits at 29-14. Blomberg scored three times and Wudi put back his own miss. Quednow scored twice around a Borchardt 3-pointer and Wudi hit Sutherland on a long outlet pass for an easy bucket. Wudi delivered a dagger by sinking a leftwing 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer for a 36-21 lead.

Sutherland scored six points and his steal led to a Quednow score in the 10-0 run to start the second half that put the Redmen up by 25 before Newman’s Quincy Pfender finally broke the run with a 3-pointer. But the Cardinals never got closer than 22 from there.

Quednow led four Redmen in double figures with 16 points on eight-of-11 shooting. He also led the team with eight rebounds and had two steals and two blocked shots. Blomberg had 15 points, six rebounds, two assists, two steals and two blocked shots. Wudi was six of nine from the field, including two of three from long range, and scored 14 points. He had seven rebounds and six assists. Sutherland was five of seven to score 10 points, plus he had five rebounds and four steals.

Borchardt added five points and two assists, Scheithauer had a bucket and two assists and Corey Fuchs got back-to-back scores inside late in the game off assists from Blomberg and Henderson. Henderson had five rebounds and two assists.

Pfender led Newman, who fell to 2-16 at the time, with 22 points.