Vikings stung by Hornets then trounce Toppers

Looking to enter the regional tournament on a positive note, the Colfax boys lost a see saw battle at home against the Cadott Hornets Feb. 22 by a score of 55-49, then traveled to Glenwood City three days later and trampled the Hilltoppers for the second time this year, this time 80-38. Colfax ended the regular season with a 10-12 record and were 8-6 in conference play while Glenwood ended 2-20 overall and 1-13 in league action. Colfax will host Boyceville Tuesday, March 1 at 7:00 in a first round regional game while the Toppers will travel to Fall Creek the same night.

Cadott

Continuing the tradition of starting all seniors in the final regular season home game, the problem of what to do with six seniors for coach Garrett Maas turned out to not be a problem after all when senior Jarrod Rudi was in street clothes. Rudi missed 11 games due to an ankle injury this season and tried to come back and play the last few games but the damage is too severe to allow him to finish the season. That being said, the starting line up for the game was Alex Knudson, Brett Prince, Andrew Harmon, Isaac Lee and Kedar Davis.

The Hornets had just five wins coming in and were close to the bottom in the Western Cloverbelt Conference. But playing against conference teams such as McDonnel Central, Eau Claire Regis, Stanley-Boyd and Altoona certainly made them a much better team than most people expected. After  Lee scored the Vikings’ fastest bucket of the year, just four seconds into the game. After taking the opening tipoff in for a layup, Colfax slowly began to build a lead when  Davis hit a pair of free throws, scored on a drive and drained a triple for a 9-5 lead. Prince scored on a put back and Lee hit from the paint to up the advantage to 13-5. Cadott controlled the boards and scored from close range and added a free toss to cut the lead before Davis stepped back behind the three point circle to nail another trey.

Both teams struggled to find the hoop for a while but the Hornets were the first ones to locate it and went on an eight point run to knot the score at 16-16. It appeared the basket was moving whenever the Vikings took a shot, resulting in several misses from three point range and from under the basket. Cadott pulled ahead 18-16 before Lee hit a short jumper and a Cadott free toss gave them the lead back.  The next four minutes were not pretty shooting wise for either team as the Vikings had five different players all come up empty on three point attempts while the Hornets could muster just one more free throw to take a 20-18 lead at the intermission.

Cadott upped their lead on a deuce to start the second half but Prince canned a trey and Davis swiped the ball and scored on a layup to get the lead back to Colfax at 23-22. Harmon added a bucket on an offensive rebound, but five seconds later it was 25-25 on a Hornet trey and they went ahead by two on a fast break layup.

Harmon drained a triple for a one-point Vikings’ advantage and Jacob Larson added to it with a reverse layup on an offensive rebound. After a pair of Hornet free tosses, Davis knocked down his third trey of the game to put Colfax up 33-29 then three straight close range shots by Cadott, including two layups in a 10 second span put them back up 35-33. Davis, who tends to score in streaks, dropped in a three pointer from the top of the circle and followed with a layup and it was 38-35 for the Vikings. A minute later, Aliymu Davis who had been dealing with foul trouble since early in the game, scored his only points of the contest on a bank shot from the paint. After Lee scored from behind the three point circle it looked like the Vikings were taking control with a 43-36 lead.

But looks can be deceiving sometimes as the Hornets streaked for 11 points  and a 47-43 lead in a span of three minutes before Prince cut the deficit to a point with a timely triple. Cadott scored from close range twice, but another huge trey by Harmon made it 51-49 for Cadott with 1:30 left. The Vikings had committed nine fouls at this point while Cadott had only two and the Hornets took advantage as they connected on 4 of 6 freebies. Meanwhile,  Colfax was off target on each shot taken in between those free tosses, allowing the Hornets to seal the win.

“We were relying way too much on three point shooting and if you don’t hit them, you don’t score many points,” coach Maas said. “We are a better team when we try to go to the hoop but we struggle getting there against zone defenses,” he added.

Kedar Davis led the Vikings with 20 points and the team only went to the foul stripe once in the game and were 2 for 2. Cadott went 12 for 20 from the line including 9 for 12 in the second half.

CADOTT (55) S. Sedlacek 5-7-10-17, B. McChesney 5-4-6-16, A. Swim 3-0-0-7, P. Freagon 2-0-0-6, B. Boyea 2-1-4-5, M. Drilling 2-0-0-4

COLFAX (49) K. Davis 7-2-2-20, Lee 4-0-0-9, Prince 3-0-0-8, Harmon 3-0-0-8, A. Davis 1-0-0-2, Larson 1-0-0-2

THREE POINTERS: K. Davis 4, Prince 2, Harmon 2, Freagon 2, McChesney 2, Lee 1, Swim 1

Glenwood City

Another game against the struggling Hilltoppers helped the Vikings find their shooting eye as they drained 13 triples in the contest and hit the 80 point mark for the first time this season. Aliymu Davis put Colfax on the board with a shot in the lane and after the Toppers went up 3-2 on a triple, Harmon responded with his own. That was the last time the Vikings would fall behind as Kedar Davis was feeling it again when he canned a short jumper and added four treys along with one by Aliymu Davis to give the Vikings a 24-13 lead. Lee made one of three free throws and a deuce from Aliymu Davis upped the lead to 27-13. Colfax continued to find nothing but net with another long ball from Harmon, Kedar and Aliymu Davis and a pair of Prince free throws that closed out the first half with the Vikings up 42-19.

Harmon started the second stanza with his own seven point roll on two jumpers and a triple for a 49-20 advantage. After Prince snuck behind the Topper defense for a transition layup and Larson scored on a drive it was 53-21 and the points kept coming when Scharlau scored on a deuce and Knudson drained a shot from behind the circle. The Colfax lead went to 30 points at 65-35 after Lee scored on a put back and Harmon hit from close range, and Treyton Teige came off the bench and scored his first varsity points after being on the court a few seconds on an offensive rebound from a teammate’s missed free throw. Scharlau and Larson each added a bucket from the paint, Knudson knocked down another trey for a 74-35 advantage and when another reserve, Matthew Reisdorf hit a free toss, it was a running clock with around three minutes to go and a 75-35 Colfax lead. Knudson dropped in a pair of freebies and the Colfax scoring ended with Teige’s first triple of his varsity career, making it 13 total for the team.

“We wanted to get more points in the paint instead of relying on just three pointers this game,” Coach Maas said. “We did that for awhile but began shooting from long range again. This time they were falling enough for us so we just went with it. But we did a better job of controlling the boards,too.”

Kedar Davis scored all 17 of his game high 17 points in the first half while Harmon and Aliymu Davis each tallied 16. Colfax was 9 for 19 at the charity stripe and the Toppers were 5 for 7.

COLFAX (80) K. Davis 6-0-0-17, Harmon 6-1-3-16, A. Davis 6-2-3-16, Knudson 2-2-2-8, Larson 3-0-4-6, Teige 2-0-0-5, Prince 1-2-2-4, Scharlau 2-0-0-4, Lee 1-1-3-3, Reisdorf 0-1-2-1

GLENWOOD CITY (38) D. Hierlmeier 4-2-2-11, N. Mrdutt 3-0-0-8, A. Croes 3-0-0-6, N. Schone 2-0-0-5, T. Davis 1-3-5-5, M. Wink 1-0-0-3

THREE POINTERS: K. Davis 5, Harmon 3, A. Davis 2, Knudson 2, Teige 1, Schone 1, Wink 1, Mrdutt 1, Hierlmeier 1.