WIAA DIV. 5 SECTIONAL SEMIFINAL - Scheithauer’s shot beats Prentice, sends RL to final

WIAA DIV. 5 SECTIONAL SEMIFINAL

It surprised no one in the Tomahawk Fieldhouse that Thursday’s WIAA Division 5 sectional semifinal between Rib Lake and Prentice came down to the final seconds. It likely surprised no Rib Lake fan that Talon Scheithauer was the one taking the last shot, looking to snap a 4141 tie.

And, to at least one of his teammates, it came as no surprise that the junior guard drilled that 3-point shot with 5.6 seconds left, giving the Redmen a thrilling 44-41 win over their Marawood North rivals and pulling them within one win of a berth in the WIAA state tournament.

“I’ve played enough games with him in open gym and at practice to know once he gets to that stepback, I’m like, ‘this is going in,’” Rib Lake junior post Jed Henderson said. “I still tried to get in position for the rebound just in case, but as soon as he shot that, I was like, ‘oh yeah. We’re looking good.’” The third meeting of the season between the teams was never separated by more than five points. Down the stretch, when one team made a shot, the other answered. With 1:38 left, after Prentice’s Evan Lord hit 26 points for the night and tied the game with his third 3-pointer, the Redmen were determined to make sure they got the last shot of regulation.

Rib Lake ran the clock down to 1:05 and called a timeout. From there, the Redmen ran it down another 30 seconds before a Prentice forced another inbound pass. After that, the ball primarily stayed in the hands of point guard Seth Borchardt, until he handed to Scheithauer, who curled around the 3-point arc from the left side, shed defender Eliah Harding with a behind-the-back dribble and rattled home the go-ahead bucket.

“We were trying to get one shot,” Scheithauer said. “We worked it around. It came down to like 10 seconds left. I was with the guy, the guy fell, I had room, so I shot.”

“We wanted to take the last shot,” head coach Todd Henderson said. “We said we have timeouts. If we get in trouble we can call a timeout and re-set. We ran an action there and we just thought whatever happens, we’ll have some different options out of it. Talon is a guy you want shooting the ball at the end of a game. Not that anybody else couldn’t do it, but it definitely doesn’t hurt to have a kid that can step up and make some shots.”

Scheithauer emerged as Rib Lake’s shot-maker Thursday in a game where long, patient offensive possessions were the norm. He scored 11 of his 17 points in the second half and the last 3-pointer was his third of the game.

“I just let the shots come to me,” Scheithauer said. “We have a lot of guys on the team that can make shots. I was not looking for my shot. It was just coming to me.”

Lord certainly was Prentice’s shotmaker. He had a huge first half with 16 points, helping stake the Buccaneers to a 25-20 halftime lead. Freshman Slade Scheithauer hit a 3-pointer for Rib Lake to tie the game at 16-16 with 6:05 left in the half and another freshman, Lucas Cook, scored at the rim to put Rib Lake in the lead, but Lord put back his own miss and then scored twice more to put Prentice up by four. After Talon Scheithauer’s tough shot in traffic in the lane, Matti Heikkinen knocked down a 3-pointer that gave the Bucs their 25-20 halftime lead.

Both teams stayed with their man-toman defenses through the first half, but they both changed things up in the second half. Rib Lake went to its 2-3 zone in hopes of reducing the one-on-one matchup Lord was winning in the first half. The Bucs switched things up between some fullcourt pressure, their 1-3-1 zone while still mixing in their man-to-man.

“I thought we had to change something up,” Todd Henderson said. “So we said let’s try a zone. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try and do some double teams on Lord or something like that. If not, we’ll have to put a different guy to guard him inside, maybe get some height on him. He’s a kid that we talk about can score at all three levels. He can score at the rim. He has a mid-range jumper and he can hit it from 3. He presents a matchup problem, that’s for sure.”

The teams’ two big men, Jed Henderson for Rib Lake and Prentice’s Aidan Hause, battled each other to a virtual standstill as they were limited to eight and six points respectively. Henderson though did score twice in a 7-2 spurt that put Rib Lake up 38-33. But Prentice’s Heston Hueckman hit two free throws with 5:25 left and Lord swished a triple to knot the game at 38-38 with 3:59 left. The teams traded stops, then Rib Lake’s Ethan Cook came up with a huge offensive rebound, tracking down his own missed 3-pointer. He got the ball to Talon Scheithauer, who drilled a 3-ball from the right side with 2:03 left.

Lord responded with his last tying 3 when Rib Lake lost him on a baseline inbound play and he got an open look from the left corner. Lord did not get Prentice’s last shot after Rib Lake went back ahead. Prentice’s inbound pass went to Hause near mid-court. Lord went to the left. Hause’s pass went to Hagan Isaacson on the right, who took one dribble and got a good look at a 3, but it only grazed the front of the rim.

“That was really exciting,” Jed Henderson said. “It’s always special to beat Prentice. I mean at the start of the season, only in my wildest dreams would we still be playing and making it this far. It’s so much fun. They’re a really good team. I think Evan is probably the best player I’ve ever played against. He was really crazy tonight. I’m just so happy with our guys. We had a lot of spread out scoring. Everybody pitching in. It was just a lot of fun.”

“We’ve played them,” Talon Scheithauer said. “We know what they have, we know what they bring to the table. We just had to step up. We knew this game was going to be down the wire so it was just about stepping up, making some shots and playing good defense. It was a low-scoring game. The defense did really well.”

Borchardt scored 10 points for the Redmen, who improved to 21-7 at the time, and had five rebounds, three assists and two steals. Ethan Cook had one point and led Rib Lake with six rebounds and three assists. Blake Henderson and Slade Scheithauer scored three points each and Lucas Cook added two as the freshmen trio played with poise on a big stage. Henderson played a key role in the final 5:37 of the first half, defending Hause and keeping him without points while Jed Henderson was on the bench with two fouls. He blocked four shots.

“They did a good job,” Todd Henderson said. “I don’t think they turned the ball over much or anything. They were really calm, they played good defense, rebounded.”

“I think the nice part about it was we’ve played Prentice before and the games are always like this,” Jed Henderson said. “So it wasn’t anything super out of the ordinary. With the guys we have, we just keep our cool. We play hard. I didn’t think we got flustered too bad.”

With the win, Rib Lake advanced to Saturday’s sectional final in Altoona against Turtle Lake, who edged Spring Valley 51-50 in Thursday’s other sectional semifinal thanks to an incredible bounce on a four-point play from Brandon Wagner with 1.2 seconds left.

“I’ve told the guys the sum of the team is greater than its parts,” Todd Henderson said. “It’s something I learned in college. If you play well as a team, you can beat teams that individually have more talent. That’s what I love about these guys. They work hard as a team. They work to make each other better.”

Above: Rib Lake's Talon Scheithauer gets Prentice defender Eliah Harding to stumble and then pulls up for the gamewinning 3-point shot with 5.6 seconds left, sealing the Redmen's 44-41 win over the Buccaneers. Right: Scheithauer watches his game-winner go through the basket. MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS

Rib Lake's Blake Henderson drives through the heart of Prentice's defense, scores and gets fouled for an early threepoint play during Thursday's WIAA Division 5 sectional semifinal played in Tomahawk. MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS