Colfax boys fall to Cochrane-Fountain City in basketball opener, beat Crickets

By Cara L. Dempski

For a second straight year, the Colfax Vikings boys’ basketball team opened its season against non-conference foe Cochrane-Fountain City. And like a year ago, the Vikings came up short falling to the Pirates 66-42 on its home hardwood lats Tuesday, November 29.

Colfax got off to a slow start in the game, scoring just 13 points and trailed Cochrane-Fountain City by 18 at halftime, 31-13.

Coach Garrett Maas’ squad picked up the pace in the latter half, scoring more than twice as many points in the second half as it did in the first but were never able to close the gap.

The Vikings had a few days to work on things before meeting  Fall Creek in the Northwest Tipoff Classic at the UW-Stout on Saturday, December 3.

Colfax grabbed its first win of the season as it escaped with a one-point victory over Fall Creek, 47-46, after it managed to stave off multiple Cricket rallies.

The Colfax boys opened Dunn-St. Croix Conference play in Durand last night (December 6) and will host Boyceville Friday, December 9.

Cochrane-Fountain City

It took less than five minutes for the Pirates to grab a double-digit lead over the Vikings in Colfax’s season and home opener on November 29. The Vikings weren’t able to get on the board until 12:11 in the first half, when senior Jacob Larson finally pushed in to the lane to bounce one off the glass and through the hoop to make the score 10-2.

“I thought our kids played extremely hard the whole game,” Maas stated. “We had a tough time making shots against a very good CFC team that had a lot of size.”

Maas’ team is not a group of small fries, with sophomore Luke Heidorn being the only player under 5 feet 11 inches tall. Aliymu Davis, a senior, is the only other Viking under six feet, and the tallest players on the team are George Scharlau and Matthew Reisdorf, who both measure up at 6 feet 3 inches.

By contrast, the Pirates started two 5 foot 11 inch guards, Mason Baecker and Tristan Schmidtknecht and 6 foot 7 inch forward Nick Thorsell.

Despite being down by 18 at the half, Maas expressed pride in the team’s effort to battle back to within nine points. He would like to see the team limit turnovers and do a better job on the boards.

Scharlau, a sophomore, put up a team-leading 16 points in the game and was two for three on free throws. Davis added another 12 with two field goals and a pair of three-point shots. Larson chalked up 10 points with four field goals and two free throws.

Ben Thompson contributed a single three-point shot, and Jon Welk added one point with a free throw.

Marcus Reisdorf and Adam Pretasky both went to the free throw line, but were not able to sink any shots.

The Pirates’ senior forward Nate Urell tallied 20 points with seven field goals, a three-pointer, and three of his five free throw attempts.

COCHRANE-FOUNTAIN CITY 66, COLFAX 42
Cochrane-Fountain City……..31  35 — 66
Colfax………………………………13  29 — 42

TEAM STATISTICS (FG-FT-F-T)
Cochrane-Fountain City (22-14-18-66) M. Baecker 3-3-1-11, T. Schmidtknecht 1-1-4-4, C. Theusch 1-0-0-3, N. Thorsell 3-0-1-7, J. White 1-2-0-5, B. Drazkowski 2-0-0-4, D. Zonick-Greenwald 1-0-3-3, L. Gabel 1-2-3-4, G. Barum 0-2-2-2, M. Oldendorf 1-1-2-3, N. Urell 8-3-2-20.

Colfax (16-5-20-42) B. Thompson 2-0-1-3, A. Davis 5-0-3-12, J. Larson 4-2-3-10, J. Welk 0-1-2-1, G. Scharlau 6-2-2-16, M. Reisdorf 0-0-3-0, A. Pretasky 0-0-1-0.

THREE-POINTERS CFC — M. Baecker 2, T. Schmidtknecht 1, C. Theusch 1, N. Thorsell 1, J. White 1, D. Zonick-Greenwald 1, N. Urell 1; C — B. Thompson 1, A. Davis 2, G. Scharlau 2.

Fall Creek

It only took four seconds in the game against Fall Creek for the Vikings to draw a foul. George Scharlau shot for two, made one, and put the Colfax boys on the board 1-0 with the clock at 17:56 in the first half of the December 3 contest at Stout.

There was a lot of back-and-forth play after that, with both teams exchanging the lead throughout the first half. Colfax went to the locker room at halftime with a 29-21 lead over the Crickets highlighted by George Scharlau, who nailed a last-second, buzzer-beater three-point shot.

The Crickets came out quickly in the second half, and pulled the score to 28-29 before Aliymu Davis was fouled on a successful three-point attempt. Although he didn’t sink the free throw, the Vikings led 32-28 with 13:18 left in the contest.

Fall Creek pulled even at 40 a little over five minutes later, and then went up 42-40.

The two teams battled back and forth again in the waning few minutes of play with Colfax’s George Scharlau hitting a three that helped propel the Vikings to a one-point win.

Scharlau led the game with 12 points, and senior Aliymu Davis logged another 10. Ben Thompson, Jacob Larson and Matthew Reisdorf each nabbed six points, Adam Pretasky logged five, and Marcus Reisdorf picked up two points.

The Vikings hit seven treys in the contest, two each by Thompson, Davis and Scharlau.

“We got a lot of guys that don’t have a lot of varsity experience,” coach Garrett Maas stated, “but it was good to see them finish a game like that.”

Fall Creek’s leading scorer was senior Sam Steinke with 15 points.

FALL CREEK 46, COLFAX 47
Fall Creek………………………21  25 — 46
Colfax………………………..…29  18 — 47

TEAM STATISTICS (FG-FT-F-T)

Fall Creek (18-4-12-46) J. Pritzl 1-0-1-3, L. Dallas 5-0-1-10, J. Kinderman 2-0-4-5, D. Schulz 3-0-0-7, J. McInnis 0-2-1-2, B. Nicks 1-0-2-2, S. Steinke 6-2-3-15.

Colfax (18-4-12-47) B. Thompson 2-0-2-6, A. Davis 4-0-3-10, J. Larson 3-0-2-6, G. Scharlau 4-2-2-12, Mar. Reisdorf 0-2-0-2, A. Pretasky 2-0-2-5, Mat. Reisdorf 3-0-1-6.

THREE-POINTERS FC — J. Pritzl 1, J. Kinderman 1, D. Schulz 1, S. Steinke 1; C — B. Thompson 2, A. Davis 2, G. Scharlau 2, A. Pretasky 1.