Toppers fall victim to Vikings

COLFAX — The Glenwood City boy’s basketball team dug themselves a big hole that proved too hard to get out of as they fell behind 16-0 before dropping a conference game 67-34 at Colfax Dec. 20.

The Toppers came up empty on their first nine possessions as they either turned the ball over or simply missed some open shots to start the game. Meanwhile the Vikings were aggressive on both ends of the court as Austin Huss scored 10 points to help them take a 16-0 lead. The Toppers finally broke the dry spell as Tyler Nueske hit from underneath and after Chris Wagner added another shot from close range, Nueske scored off of his own miss and the Toppers were down 20-6 at the end of the first quarter.

Glenwood hit another dry spell as they didn’t add anything to their point total until the 3:54 mark of the second stanza when Richard Ross hit a pair of free throws, then Marcus Kadinger drained a triple as did Nueske, and with a free toss by Jacob Hierlmeier and two more from Ross, the Toppers still had a lot of ground to make up as they entered the break behind 33-17.

Hierlmeier hit from close range and Ross connected on the first of his three buckets of the quarter, but the Toppers didn’t have an answer for Huss as he continued to drive the lane, dropping in five more baskets. Although Glenwood had plenty of good looks at the hoop, their shots were off the mark and even after picking up some offensive rebounds, the ball just couldn’t find the basket and they entered the final eight minutes behind 53-29. Kadinger hit a three ball and Chris Wagner dropped in a couple of free tosses for the only points of the final stanza for the team.

“We had two big problems tonight,” Hilltopper coach Brent Wink said. “We did not shoot very well. I think we were 3 of 21 on three point shots. And we couldn’t stop Austin Huss. We tried a few different players on him but he is hard to defend when he gets in the lane. This was our fourth game and we should be playing better ball than this. Hopefully with the tournament games coming up we will have a chance to work on some things and be ready for conference games in January.”

Ross was the only Topper in double figures with 11 points while Nueske added eight. Huss led the Vikings with 28 points.

COLFAX (67) Huss 11-6-7-28, Zivcic 6-0-0-13, Rudi 2-3-4-8, DeMoe 2-0-0-4, Kiekhafer 2-0-0-4, Wahl 1-2-3-4, Phillips 1-0-0-3, Kragness 1-0-0-2, Wait 0-1-2-1

GLENWOOD CITY (34) R. Ross 3-5-6-11, Nueske 3-1-2-8, M. Kadinger 2-0-1-6, J. Hierlmeier 2-1-2-5, C. Wagner 1-2-3-4

THREE POINTERS: Kadinger 2, Rudi 1, Phillips 1, Zivcic 1, Nueske 1