North champs hold off Colby after falling to unbeaten Tigers

RIB LAKE BOYS BASKETBALL

With Nick Gerstberger providing the inside punch and sophomore Logan Blomberg surprising the home team with his outside shooting touch, the Rib Lake boys basketball team survived a non-conference test at Colby Tuesday 59-51 to earn its 17th win of the season.

The newly-crowned outright champions of the Marawood North, the Redmen got 18 points from Gerstberger. Blomberg not only hit double digits for the first time this season, he pumped in four 3-point baskets, including three in the second half to score 16 points. His 3s helped Rib Lake stave off several mini runs the Hornets made at them in the second half.

Rib Lake led 31-25 at halftime behind Gerstberger’s 11 early points and seven more from Steven Petkau. Colby got within four early in the second half, but the Redmen got on a 7-2 run and pulled out to a 45-35 lead following Blomberg’s second 3 of the half. The Hornets got as close as four again, but Rib Lake’s rebounding, ball handling and some late free throws kept the Redmen ahead.

Petkau finished with 12 points in the win while seniors Levi Ewan and Devyn Vlach were held to four points each. Freshman Michael Borchardt hit a firsthalf 3-pointer and Ryan Patrick got his lone bucket in the second half.

Colby (8-10) got 12 points out of Noah Robida and 10 from Brent Jeske. Robida hit three second-half 3-pointers to keep the Hornets close. Jeske scored eight of his points in the first half. Richard Streveler knocked down a couple of 3s and scored eight points.

Rib Lake clinched the outright Marawood North championship without even playing on Friday night when Marathon beat Phillips 69-66 to drop the Loggers to four games behind the Redmen with two to play. Athens’ 73-64 loss to Auburndale on Thursday knocked the Blue Jays out of contention as well.

Athens will be Rib Lake’s next opponent on Friday when they host the Blue Jays for a 7:15 p.m. tip time. Rib Lake beat their long-time rivals 53-50 in the teams’ first meeting of the year on Jan. 3.

Rib Lake (11-3 Marawood) wraps up its regular season Monday with a rescheduled game at Chequamegon. Over the weekend, the Redmen will learn where they’ll be seeded in the WIAA Division 5 post-season tournament, which gets underway March 3.

Stratford 57, Rib Lake 44

The first thing that jumps out to any fan about the undefeated Stratford Tigers is their size. That size was certainly a factor in Thursday’s showdown between Marawood Conference leaders in Rib Lake as 6-5 senior Vaughn Breit registered a 19-point, 12-rebound doubledouble and 6-6 senior Ben Barten had 10 points and nine rebounds in the Tigers’ 57-44 win.

After falling behind 11-2 in the first 5:30, the Redmen made a couple runs at the Tigers, pulling within 29-25 with 14:23 left and 48-42 with 1:51 left. Stratford, though, always had the answer and left town with its perfect record still intact at 18-0.

Rib Lake head coach Carrie Ewan said it was no secret dealing with the Tigers’ size was going to be a big story line heading into the contest. On the defensive end, the Redmen tried double teaming Breit and Barten as much as possible.

“We knew that going in,” Ewan said. “I thought our guys did as much as they could with those guys. We did get them to turn it over a couple of times. They have some real quick post moves. You have to double team them pretty much. They’re quick post players and they’re big.”

The other key to success, Rib Lake felt, was to shoot well from that outside and that, unfortunately for the Redmen, didn’t go as well as they’d hoped. The Redmen were especially cold from the outside in the first half, only getting two 3-point shots to fall. Overall, they wound up six for 24 from long range, while Stratford was an efficient five for 10. Overall, Rib Lake was 15 of 51 from the field (29.4%).

“We shot poorly and I think that was really a difference maker in the game,” Ewan said. “They hit shots a lot better than we did.”

Rib Lake’s first long-range shot to fall bounced off the rim, high off the glass and then in for Blomberg, making the score 18-9. Petkau followed with a steal and forceful two-handed slam dunk to get the home crowd roaring, but Breit quickly silenced the fans with one of the biggest shots of the game, drilling a 3-pointer from the right corner. Barten’s offensive putback moments later pushed the lead back to 12. It was 13 when Vlach hit a big 3-pointer at the buzzer to bring Rib Lake within 26-16 at the break.

Rib Lake carried that momentum into the early moments of the second half. Petkau hit a 12-foot jumper that was answered by a Dawson Danen 3 for Stratford. Levi Ewan then was ruled to have been fouled going up for a 3-point shot, which he made, and he sank the free throw for a four-point play. He came back and swished a 3-pointer from the left wing and suddenly it was a fourpoint game.

“We had momentum going our way,” Carrie Ewan said. “We brought momentum into the locker room at halftime. We were down by 10 with Devyn’s shot instead of being down by 13. That felt like a big difference. We just had to keep going on that. It was almost like you can’t make any mistakes and you can’t miss the little shots. We just did too much of that.”

Out of a timeout, Stratford was again clutch. Chandler Schmidt got a driving lane and scored. Barten got loose inside, Schmidt converted a three-point play and Barten put back a Schmidt miss over the next four minutes to put the Tigers up 38-25. Breit’s score from the post made it 40-26 before Petkau was fouled taking a 3-point shot and made all three free throws with 8:26 left.

From there, the Redmen chipped away again. Vlach’s 3 got the lead back into single digits at 43-34. Petkau’s spin move along the baseline made it 47-39 with 3:05 left. Vlach banked in a long 3-pointer to make it 48-42 with 1:51 to go and Stratford then turned the ball over on the ensuing inbound to give Rib Lake a chance to get even closer. But Ewan’s driving shot just rimmed out. Breit got the rebound and was fouled. He made one bonus free throw, but Stratford rebounded the miss, leading to two bonus throws for Danen. The Redmen broke down the Stratford defense and got Blomberg an easy lay-in to cut it to 51-44, but Schmidt sank two free throws, Vlach missed a 3 and Breit made two more free throws with 55.7 seconds left to put it away.

Vlach led Rib Lake with 13 points, while Petkau and Ewan scored 11 each. Blomberg scored five. With little room to operate inside, Gerstberger finished with only two points. Patrick added a putback in the first half. Vlach had a team-high four rebounds as Stratford had a 37-13 bulge in that statistic. Petkau had four assists, three blocked shots and three steals. Ewan had three steals and three assists.

“We tried to run our offense so their guys aren’t completely under the basket all the time,” Carrie Ewan said. “We tried to bring them out a little bit. You kinda have to make sure you have five guys on the floor at a time that can hit the outside shot. Otherwise they sag way off and invite the shot. We did try to bring their big guys away from the basket just a little bit. We needed to hit from the outside. We knew we weren’t going to be able to just drive in and get layups against this team.”