Vikings win at home and on the road

What was expected to be a busy week for the Colfax boys’ basketball team turned out to be not quite as busy when their big showdown with Elmwood was postponed due to bad weather Tuesday, Jan. 26. (The game will be made up at home Saturday, Feb. 9 at 7:30). They made the best of things however, with a pair of wins in two days time including a 65-29 win over visiting Flambeau Jan. 31, then traveled to St. Croix Central on a below 0 night and stayed hot with a 57-36 win over the Panthers.

Flambeau

There was certainly a lot of red and white in the gym as the Vikings wore their home white with red trim uniforms while the Falcons were in their red traveling outfits. Flambeau came in with a 6-8 record and were tied for second in the East Lakeland Conference at 6-2, but it didn’t take long for them to find out they were no match for the 12-3 Vikings.

Lane Olson asserted himself in the lane early as he hit the first two shots of the game for Colfax and Cody Zivcic followed with his own close range basket via a pass from Ethin Kiekhafer for a 6-0 lead. Ben Kragness connected on a short jumper, Olson added a free throw, Sawyer DeMoe came up with a three point play on a bucket and free throw, Zivcic zipped down court for a layup after a steal and scored on another layup after Olson snared a defensive rebound and sent a baseball pass to him to increase the lead to 16-2. Kiekhafer intercepted a Falcon pass and went the distance for another Colfax layup and Zivcic came up with the 20th point of the quarter on a shot from under the hoop for a 20-4 lead.

The teams played even in the second quarter with nine points a piece, but the third stanza was the difference as the Vikings started the quarter on a nine point run led by Zivcic’s short range shot just eight seconds in. Zivcic came up with nine more points and DeMoe added six to help the Vikings finish off the quarter with a 52-21 lead.

Grant Phillips and Joe Wahl both came up with fourth quarter points and Jarrod Rudi sank his second triple of the game to allow Colfax to coast to the victory.

“I thought we played pretty well, especially on the defensive end,” Colfax coach Andy Meade said. “We did a good job applying pressure and rotating when we needed to. It was a very solid outing both defensively and rebounding wise.”

Zivcic led in the scoring department with 22 points while DeMoe added 13. Kiekhafer picked up six assists and five steals while Joe Wahl came off the bench to snare a team leading nine rebounds. The team’s shooting percentage wasn’t quite up to par as they were just 28 for 62 for 45% and 4 of 19 from three point land for 21%.

COLFAX (65) Zivcic 9-2-2-22, DeMoe 6-1-1-13, Olson 3-1-2-7, Rudi 2-0-0-6, Phillips 3-0-1-6, Wahl 2-0-0-4, Kiekhafer 2-0-0-4, Kragness 1-1-2-3

FLAMBEAU (29) W. Zimmer 4-0-5-8, A. Stout 3-0-0-8, P. Demovsek 3-0-0-6, C. Groothousen 1-0-0-3, J. Groothousen 1-0-0-2, P. Groothousen 1-0-0-2

THREE POINTERS: Zivcic 2, Rudi 2, Stout 2, C. Groothousen 1

St. Croix Central

For the second game in a row, 20 was a good number for the Vikings, especially in the first quarter since Zivcic, Olson, Kiekhafer and DeMoe combined for that many points while the Colfax defense held the Panthers to just seven. After taking a 31-13 halftime lead, the Vikings played steady on both sides of the ball the second half and they finished with their second big win of the season over Central, and their eighth conference win.

“We played a very solid defensive game and I thought Central played pretty well,” Meade said. “They did a nice job attacking us and made some shots. I thought we had a pretty active game from Olson on both ends of the floor and  we also had a good game from DeMoe. He has really developed into a consistent player.”

Zivcic continues to find the bottom of the net on a regular basis as he finished with 18 points on eight shots from the field and Kiekhafer and Olson both came up with 10 points.

COLFAX (57) Zivcic 8-0-0-18, Kiekhafer 4-1-1-10, Olson 5-0-0-10, DeMoe 4-1-2-9, Wahl 1-2-2-4, Rudi 0-2-2-2, Phillips 1-0-0-2, Kragness 1-0-0-2

ST. CROIX CENTRAL (36) D. Cotrell 3-2-2-9, DJ. Holland 3-0-0-8, J. Matteson 3-0-0-7, B. Booth 1-3-5-5, C. Lyksett 2-0-0-4, T. Berg 0-2-4-2, K. Tallman 0-1-2-1

THREE POINTERS: Zivcic 2, Holland 2, Kiekhafer 1, Matteson 1