WIAA DIV. 5 BOYS BASKETBALL - Gilman can’t quite recover from mid-game drought in regional loss

WIAA DIV. 5 BOYS BASKETBALL

While there were many twists and turns at the end, the Gilman Pirates ultimately couldn’t overcome a long scoring drought in the middle of Tuesday’s WIAA Division 5 regional quarterfinal and came out on the short end of a 62-54 overtime thriller at Drummond.

The Pirates got one free throw while not making a field goal between Max Ustianowski’s score in the paint with 2:18 left in the first half and Beau Pockat’s 3pointer with 6:49 left in regulation. Drummond took advantage in that drought of nearly 14 minutes, turning its 28-18 deficit into a 40-29 lead by the time Pockat finally swished his 3-ball.

The Lumberjacks, though, let chances to seal the game get away and Gilman kept pushing to somehow get it tied at 50-50 on Logan Halida’s runner with five seconds left. Ustianowski’s free throw put Gilman on top 51-50 with 2:37 left in overtime, but Ben Giesregen’s go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:56 left, followed by an Aaron Christenson basket with 1:21 to go put the seventh-seeded Lumberjacks up 56-51. The 10th-seeded Pirates weren’t able to catch up after that and saw their season end at 6-18.

Drummond improved to 15-10 and will head to high-scoring and second-seeded Bayfield (20-5) for Friday’s regional semifinal. The Trollers clobbered 15thseeded Cornell Tuesday 101-37.

“We didn’t score for the first 10 minutes of the second half and then we scored 22 points in eight minutes,” Gilman head coach Tyler Pockat said. “We had some opportunities down low at the end where we could’ve put it away and we missed some bunnies. We had about five bad possessions with about a minute left. It changes the outcome of the game if you make one or two of them.”

The Pirates surged ahead in the first half behind a 3-point hot streak. Down 1411, Joey Syryczuk scored off a Tony Syryczuk assist, then Halida buried a 3pointer. Halida’s steal led to a Tony Syryczuk basket, then Tony Syryczuk and Halida knocked down triples for a 24-14 lead. Christenson scored twice for Drummond, but scores by Pockat and Ustianowski got the lead back to 10 before the Pirates eventually settled for a 28-19 halftime lead.

“The first half was fine,” Pockat said. “The offense was kind of rolling and we were playing good defense. The guys were pretty jacked up at halftime too. We talked about it, that we had to finish a game here and this was a good opportunity.”

Aiming to win Gilman’s first boys basketball tournament game since the 2018-19 season, the Pirates went cold and the Lumberjacks scored the first 16 points of the half over an eight-minute span. Once the Pirates finally got Beau Pockat’s 3, they got on a little run, adding a threepoint play by Pockat off a Tony Syryczuk steal, a hard drive to the rack from Halida and Halida’s short baseline jumper off a Pockat assist. Pockat’s free throw with 3:04 left made it 42-40. Drummond answered with a hoop and then a huge 3-point shot Giesregen to got up 47-40 with 2:15 left. A Tony Syryczuk steal led to a Halida hoop at the 1:35 mark. A missed bonus free throw allowed Gilman to make it a one-score game on Pockat’s bucket with a minute remaining. The teams traded missed free throws until Ustianowski got a rebound bucket to make it 47-46 with 45 seconds left.

The Lumberjacks made three of four free throws to build a 50-46 lead with 20 seconds left, but Joey Syryczuk scored with 13 ticks left. Giesregen missed a free throw with 12.1 seconds left and didn’t get a chance to shoot the second due to a Drummond lane violation, setting up Halida’s tying score.

After the Pirates fell behind by five in overtime, Ustianowski converted a threepoint play with 1:03 left to get Gilman within 56-54, but nothing fell for them after that and Drummond made six of eight free throws in the last 48 seconds to finally put it away. Drummond made just 15 of 30 free throws, while Gilman was seven of 15.

“They did a good job weathering the storm,” Tyler Pockat said. “Drummond missed some free throws at the end and we came back down and made a shot. But we couldn’t get that next shot. Then we’d have to foul them and they’d go up four. We never got on the right end of that.

“But they battled hard and you can never underestimate their effort. It’s just 120% every night.”

Halida scored 16 points to lead Gilman in scoring. Pockat scored 13 and Ustianowski had 11 points and eight rebounds in his final game in a Pirates’ uniform. Tony Syryczuk’s eight points all came in the first half. Senior Joey Syryczuk finished with four points and five rebounds. Senior Trevor Vick had a firsthalf hoop and four rebounds.

The Pirates weren’t bad on two-point shots, making 16 of 33, but they were only five of 27 from 3-point range.

Giesregen’s 23 points led all scorers. Christenson scored 16 for the Lumberjacks and Brett Hanson added 10.

“The three seniors gave us a lot this year,” Tyler Pockat said. “They grew a lot in two years. They improved so much. I was pretty proud of the boys at the end of the night even though we were on the bad end of it. Just to get back into it, that takes a lot for a group of kids not to hang their heads there.

“We were close to having 10 wins this year,” he added. “We could’ve. We just didn’t finish. Hopefully they learn from some of this and we get after it and we work a little bit harder.”

Thorp 52, Gilman 47

On Thursday, the Thorp Cardinals started the second half with a 29-8 surge and rode that to a regular-season-ending 52-47 win over Gilman in the seventhplace game of the Cloverbelt Conference crossovers.

Thorp’s big run wiped out a 24-19 halftime lead that the Pirates had held. With the win, Thorp avenged a 55-50 loss Gilman had handed in back on Jan. 14. The win was just Thorp’s third of the regular season.

Alexander Walters sparked run. The senior big man scored Thorp’s first nine points of the second half, including a 3pointer, to put the Cardinals ahead 28-26. Joey Syryczuk scored to tie the game for Gilman, but Thorp pulled ahead again by scoring the next five points.

Ustianowski’s rebound bucket got the Pirates within 33-30, but the Cardinals went on a tea, getting 3-pointers from Cooper Rosemeyer, Landon Penk and Daniel Mathison to go up by 14. After a Halida score for Gilman, Rosemeyer and Walker Horgen scored to put Thorp up 4832 with 5:20 left.

The Pirates made a bit of a run behind 3-pointers from Tony and Joey Syryczuk and got within 50-44 with 1:19 left. A missed free throw gave Gilman a chance to get even closer, but 3-point tries by Tony Syryczuk and Pockat didn’t find their mark and the Pirates were out of time when Joey Syryczuk sank one at the buzzer.

Halida was on fire from long range in the first half, sinking six 3-point shots to account for 18 of Gilman’s 24 points in the half. He finished with a game-high 20. Joey Syryczuk added 18. But after that, the scoring was slim for Gilman. Ustianowski scored four points, Tony Syryczuk scored three and Pockat was held to two.

Mathison led Thorp with 16 points, including three first-half 3s. Rosemeyer had 10 and Walters scored all of his nine in that run to start the second half.