GILMAN BOYS BASKETBALL - Two losses to Dons, but second effort is much better from Pirates

GILMAN BOYS BASKETBALL

The Columbus Catholic Dons earned a share of the Eastern Cloverbelt Conference boys basketball championship Monday, but the Gilman Pirates made them earn it.

Three days after the Dons crushed Gilman 72-30 in a game that was never close, the Pirates nearly wiped out an early 14-0 deficit and battled Columbus Catholic into the middle of the second half before the Dons’ multitude of offensive weapons wore down Gilman’s defense and created double-digit separation.

At 11-3 in league play, the Dons tied Owen-Withee for the championship. Those teams finished one game ahead of 10-4 Loyal. Gilman ended 2-12 in conference play for the second straight year. The Pirates are 6-16 overall heading into the Cloverbelt Conference’s seventhplace crossover game at Thorp, tonight, Thursday at 7:15 p.m. The game will be a rematch of a Jan. 14 contest that Gilman won 55-50.

Defensively, Gilman tried to take away Columbus Catholic’s sharp-shooting junior guard Mac Konieczny. The Pirates did a solid job of that, getting the wings on their zone defense to face guard him on the perimeter. Unfortunately, they lost Konieczny three times in the first two minutes and he made Gilman pay by hitting nothing but net on 3-point attempts during the Dons’ 14-0 gameopening run. Ben Weiland hit a 3-ball as well during that spurt.

Once Gilman locked in defensively, the Pirates started to get shots to fall and gained offensive confidence. They answered the Dons’ fast start with a 7-0 run and eventually got the deficit down to 17-11 on a rebound basket by Joey Syryczuk. Syryczuk scored five straight points to cut the Dons’ lead to 24-18 and a triple from Tony Syryczuk made it a 26-21 game. The Dons briefly went to a 1-3-1 zone and Dawson Grunseth got in the lane against that and scored to make it 28-23 before a baseline score by Carter Sommer gave Columbus Catholic a 30-23 halftime lead.

“We played a lot better than Friday,” Gilman head coach Tyler Pockat said. “It was a completely different game plan and mindset. We did some things to ourselves Friday night that put us in bad situations and therefore we lost by 40 points and had a running clock against us for the last five minutes of the game. We talked as a group after the game and we agreed this would not happen on Monday. So we refocused and had a short memory and we looked like a completely different team.”

Beau Pockat sank a 3-pointer to start the second half and added a free throw moments later to get Gilman within 32-27 with 15:21 left in the game. Columbus Catholic led 38-28 when the Pirates beat its press and got a layup from Trevor Vick. The Pirates got a stop and then got a hustle play as Vick tipped an offensive rebound to Pockat, who had been knocked to the floor. The Pirates worked the ball to Tony Syryczuk, who drilled a 3-pointer from the right wing to again get the deficit to five. Syryczuk then answered a Weiland triple with one of his own, making it 41-36 with 10:53 to play.

But with Konieczny bottled up, the Dons had other players step up. Weiland hit two 3s and Mason Edwards added another in a 14-3 spurt that put the Dons up 54-39. Weiland scored 16 of his gamehigh 19 points in the second half. Sommer broke down the Pirates inside, scoring eight of his 18 points in the second half. Konieczny wound up with 17 points, just five of which came in the second half. He was four of 12 on 3-point shots.

“You have to give Columbus credit. They are a very talented team and so well coached,” Tyler Pockat said. “We decided that we were going to play some box-andone and 3-2 zone and we did a good job taking away some 3s, which kind of frustrated them at times. Overall, we competed with the conference champs for three-quarters of the game. We just have to finish one of these.”

Joey Syryczuk led Gilman with 13 points and nine rebounds. Max Ustianowski, Beau Pockat and Tony Syryczuk scored nine points apiece. Ustianowski had five rebounds. Vick finished with five points, four assists and four rebounds and Grunseth had two points and two assists.

Gilman drew the 10th seed in the WIAA Division 5 sectional half-bracket and will visit seventh-seeded Drummond (14-10) in Tuesday’s regional opener. The winner will advance to a March 7 regional semifinal likely at second-seeded Bayfield (18-5). The Trollers host 15th-seeded Cornell (1-22) on Tuesday.

Dons 72, Pirates 30

Friday in Marshfield, it took Columbus Catholic a while to get rolling, but once the Dons did, they dropped in nine first-half 3-pointers and ran away from the Pirates 72-30.

Unfortunately for Gilman, it started out even slower and did not score until Ustianowski’s basket with 11:39 left in the first half. By then the Dons had started to warm up behind 3s from three different players and led 13-0.

The Dons tore out to a 35-3 lead as Gilman could get nothing going against Columbus Catholic's man-to-man defense. Joey Syryczuk hit twice late in the half, which ended with Columbus Catholic leading 44-9. Columbus was 16 of 31 from the field in the half, including nine of 14 from long range. Gilman was ice cold at four for 26 in the half and committed 12 of its 19 turnovers in the half.

Beau Pockat hit a couple of second-half 3-balls and led Gilman with 17 points. He grabbed six rebounds. Joey Syryczuk scored seven points and led the Pirates with eight rebounds. Ustianowski scored four points and Logan Halida scored two and grabbed five rebounds.

Konieczny led the Dons with 17 points. He was three of five from behind the arc and scored 13 of his points in the first half. Weiland added 14 points.