Rib Lake takes its best shot; it’s still not enough at Athens

WIAA DIV. 5 BOYS BASKETBALL

Coming in as a 13-seed and a doubledigit loser in two regular-season meetings to Athens, the Rib Lake Redmen played with a nothing-to-lose attitude in Tuesday’s WIAA Division 5 regional quarterfinal and gave the Blue Jays some tense moments.

But, the fourth-seeded home team showed why it won the Marawood North title in the regular season, getting the plays it needed to pull away for a 63-49 win that ended Rib Lake’s 2021-22 season.

Athens’ Connor Sheahan and Cooper Diedrich scored 18 points apiece to lead all scorers. Sheahan hit three 3-point shots in the second half, including the dagger with 3:15 left that capped a patient possession for the Blue Jays and put Athens up 57-46.

Rib Lake got an outstanding effort from senior Jordan Yanko, who scored 14 points, grabbed several rebounds, stood up defensively to Athens’ 6-5 junior post Aiden Janke and was one of the catalysts in Rib Lake’s game plan to aggressively attack the basket, undersized or not.

“They played hard. It was our best game against Athens,” Rib Lake head coach Todd Henderson said after the Redmen finished 8-16. “Our goal was to make them beat us, not beat ourselves. I think that’s what we did. We came out and fought hard. The refs kind of let both sides play. They are a little bit taller, a little bit bigger and that was a little bit of a difference. They made plays. They made shots when they needed to. They made the plays they needed. I felt our guys came back at times. We had some great hustle, some great effort, it just wasn’t quite enough in that second half to get over the hump.”

Rib Lake scored the game’s first four points, Logan Blomberg took a charge against Janke and Yanko scored inside to put his team ahead 6-5 highlighting the opening stretch of the game, but a Janke score started a 6-0 spurt that put Athens in front for good.

Athens went up by 11 on three occasions in the first half, with the last being 28-17, but Andrew Wudi sparked a Rib Lake run by fearlessly going to the hoop and scoring. Logan Blomberg sank a 3-pointer, Sam Gumz knocked down two free throws and Jackson Blomberg took a defensive rebound and went coast-tocoast for a tough layup with 30 seconds left to make it 29-26. Michael Borchardt got fouled on a defensive rebound and made the bonus free throws to pull Rib Lake within one, but Athens quickly advanced the ball up the court and got Sheahan an open right baseline jumper at the buzzer, which he sank to give Athens a 31-28 halftime lead.

“That was part of the plan,” Henderson said. “We needed to be aggressive going to the rim and try not to avoid contact but try and draw the contact and get to the line. Sometimes we did and sometimes we didn’t. That was part of it. I know they’re not a super deep team so we were hoping to get them into some foul trouble.

“Give them credit they made shots when they needed to and they played good defense and rebounded well. It’s a solid team.”

The game seemed to be on the verge of getting away from Rib Lake around the 12-minute mark of the second half when Jackson Blomberg’s steal and potential layup was ruined by a debatable charge call, then Janke got a rebound basket off a missed free throw by Diedrich to put the Jays ahead 42-32.

But after a timeout, Rib Lake regrouped and made another run, starting with a Wudi floater. Michael Borchardt got a layup off a Logan Blomberg assist and he answered a Sheahan 3 with one of his own to make it a 45-39 game. Yanko countered a Janke score with a tough move from the right baseline and he answered another Janke hoop by getting an uncontested layup off a steal to keep Rib Lake within 49-43 with 5:57 left.

But Rib Lake got another tough break 12 seconds later when Jackson Blomberg was called for a foul on a 3-point try by Sheahan and he made all three free throws. Yanko picked up a loose ball in the lane and scored, but Diedrich canned two bonus free throws for a 54-45 Athens lead at the 5:01 mark. After Yanko hit one of two free throws with 4:16 to go, Athens burned nearly a minute of clock before freeing up Sheahan for the clinching 3-pointer. Diedrich added two free throws after a steal with 2:37 left, signaling the end of Rib Lake’s upset bid.

Borchardt scored 12 points for the Redmen, Logan Blomberg scored seven in his final basketball game in a Rib Lake uniform and Jackson Blomberg scored six, all in the first half. Gumz, a senior, scored four.

“I think some of the seniors stepped it up in their last game,” Henderson said. “Jordan had a great game offensively and defensively. He finally got some shots to fall. He did a great job guarding Janke inside. Our top eight guys are just a solid group. We kind of mix and match them and kind of see which group plays well at a particular time and see if we can make a run with them.”

Janke finished with 14 points for Athens. Sheahan (16 points), Diedrich (eight points) and Janke (eight points) were the only Blue Jays to score in the second half, but it was more than enough as Athens outscored Rib Lake 32-21 in the last 18 minutes.

Athens (19-6) will host fifth-seeded Bruce (19-6) in a regional semifinal Friday night. The winner gets either eighthseeded McDonell Central (12-13) or topseeded Clear Lake (23-2) in the regional final Saturday night.

Rib Lake had a season-best four-game winning streak snapped with the loss.

“The guys finished the season well,” Henderson said. “I think we finished 5-5 after kind of a rough middle stretch of the season. We were playing our best basketball of the season right now and we realized we hadn’t played a great game against Athens yet. We tried to put one together tonight.”

Rib Lake 74, Prentice 69

Alex Schantner had a career game for Prentice Thursday with 30 points, but Rib Lake got 24 from Logan Blomberg and put four players in double figures to offset that outburst in a well-played 74-69 win over the visiting Buccaneers in the regular-season and conference finale for both teams.

The win allowed Rib Lake to finish 5-11 in Marawood play, good for fourth place in the North Division behind the third-place Buccaneers, who were 7-9 in league play and finished the regular season at 14-10.

“That was a good hard-fought game, a typical Rib Lake-Prentice game,” Henderson said. “Alex Schantner just had a huge game for them inside and kind of made up for Ashton Makovsky (Prentice’s second-team all-conference junior) not being there. He picked up Ashton’s slack. I think they average 30 points together.

“But we played well,” he added. “We played some great defense. Logan Blomberg really shot well. I think he was four of six from 3 and really caught fire especially in the second half. That was nice.

He just kind of led by example by playing defense and making shots. Guys just kept feeding him the ball when he had the hot hand.”

Both teams clicked offensively in an entertaining first half that ended with Rib Lake leading 39-38. Borchardt had eight points in the half as did Logan Blomberg, who hit two 3s. Layne Blomberg had eight points in the half for Prentice with two 3s and Schantner heated up with 16 points in the half.

Logan Blomberg started his big second half by making four straight free throws, then he went on his 3-point tear to keep Rib Lake in the lead. Yanko scored five of his 11 points in the half and Wudi made five of nine free throws to finish with 12 points. Borchardt added two more baskets to also finish with 12. It was just enough to hold off the Bucs, who got 14 more points from Schantner and 10 more points from Layne Blomberg, including two more 3s.

“Logan’s been really playing well wrapping up his senior year,” Henderson said. “He’s got a lot to be proud of.”

Tanner Vlach scored seven points for Rib Lake and had team-highs with nine rebounds and six assists. Jackson Blomberg scored six points and had four assists and three rebounds. Sam Gumz had a first-half hoop. Yanko had six rebounds. Logan Blomberg had six rebounds, two assists and two steals. Borchardt had five rebounds, three assists and three steals and Wudi had five rebounds.

The Redmen were 26 of 60 from the field (43.3%), seven of 15 from 3-point range (46.7%) and made 15 of 28 free throws, while Prentice was just nine of 23, one of the key reversals from the team’s first meeting on Jan. 27 when the Bucs outscored Rib Lake from the free throw line 18-3 in a 75-63 win.

“We struggled with turnovers and didn’t box out well the first time,” Henderson said. “We emphasized that. We cut down on turnovers and we did a much better job holding them to one shot. We played a zone defense and tried to make them make shots from the outside and do a good job of closing out on their shooters.”

with Athens’ Aiden Janke (l.) and Cooper Diedrich during the second half of Tuesday’s WIAA Division 5 regional contest.Rib Lake’s Jordan Yanko and Sam Gumz get in the middle of a loose ball battleMATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS

Griffin Marko of St. Croix Falls (l.) and Troy Duellman of Cornell-Gilman-Lake Holcombe look to set up their first shots in the opening seconds of their WIAA Division 3 145-pound first-round match Thursday at the state tournament.ROSS PATTERMANN/TRIBUNE PHONOGRAPH

Medford’s Gage Losiewicz rides Baldwin-Woodville’s Tyler Fink to start the second period of Thursday’s WIAA Division 2 132-pound state match in Madison.ROSS PATTERMANN/TRIBUNE PHONOGRAPH