Toppers’ rough loss to Cardinals and Buffaloes

By Kelsie Hoitomt

GLENWOOD CITY — The Glenwood City boys’ basketball team hosted the Spring Valley Cardinals on Tuesday night and then traveled to Mondovi on Friday.

Upset at home

It was a game that got quite out of control last Tuesday night with the Hilltopper boys’ basketball team hosting the Spring Valley Cardinals.

The calls were unnecessary, the shots were poor and the rebounds weren’t there while the Cardinals had everything together, which led to the 53-43 upset.

To the Cardinals’ credit, they are a well put together team that has very controlled and confident passing led by point guard Benjamin Becker.

Spring Valley jumped to a lead right away in the first quarter after they scored 18 points compared to the Hilltoppers’ five. This continued with the score at 30-14 by the half and 44-30 after the third quarter.

The Toppers’ had several attempts at baskets but nothing seemed to go in, even after several tries were taken, the ball kept bouncing off the rim and eventually was rebounded by the Cardinals.

This led to some serious frustration which resulted in an injured Cardinal player and 17 attempts at the foul line for Spring Valley; eight of those were successful.

On the other side, the Toppers had nine attempts at the foul line with six of those making it through.

The Toppers’ leading shooters were Nick Mrdutt with ten points from five deuces, Richard Ross with nine points from three deuces and one triple and Marcus Kadinger with eight points from one deuce and two triples; one being the final shot of the game right at the buzzer.

Also scoring were Tyler Nueske with six points, Tyler Johnson with four points, Todd Petersen had three points, Matt Schouten had two points and Jake Hierlmeier had a free throw.

Road loss in Mondovi

The Toppers had another tough conference loss last Friday night in Mondovi against the 8-3 Buffaloes who are ranked third in the DSC behind Elk Mound and Colfax.

The Buffaloes got off to a quick start as they took the lead in the first quarter 13-6 and then pushed the gap even farther in the second with the score at 28-17 by the half.

The half time break proved to be a breath of fresh air for the Hilltoppers as they blew up the court in the third quarter with 21 points scored, ten of which were scored from Kadinger. The Buffaloes scored nine points which gave the Toppers their first lead in the game 38-37.

However the Toppers fizzled out in the fourth quarter as they only scored three baskets for six points and they let the Buffaloes trail away with 16 points and the win.

Mrdutt and Kadinger were the duo under the net for the Toppers. Mrdutt had 12 points from five deuces and two free throws and Kadinger had 10 points from five deuces.

Collecting the rest of the points were Schouten with eight, Ross with seven, Hierlmeier with five and Nueske had two.

The Toppers travel to Elk Mound on Thursday to play the currently undefeated Mounders. [/ememebr_protected]