Boyceville boys’ battered by Elk Mound
By Cara L. Dempski
BOYCEVILLE — Six days after taking a 62-33 road pounding from the Colfax Vikings, the Bulldog boys’ basketball squad hosted Elk Mound.
The Boyceville team suffered another crush, losing 73-31 at the hands of the Mounders on Thursday, December 15, dropping the Bulldogs to 0-3 in the Dunn-St. Croix and 1-5 overall. The loss left them tied with Glenwood City at the bottom of the conference.
“It’s tough when you lose four in a row by a margin of a lot of points,” Boyceville head coach Ben Luer said. “It’s hard to stay positive and it’s hard to keep repeating the same things to your guys in the locker room.”
Luer said he has seen a lot of good things from his team in practice, but those things have not yet translated to games.
It did not help that the Bulldogs were missing starting point guard Bryce Boda for the game. Luer cited prior commitments Boda needed to fulfill for the absence and said Boda will return in a few games.
It took nearly five minutes for the Bulldogs to score and then Logan Knudtson had the honor of sinking the basket for Boyceville’s first two, making the score 11-2 with 13:03 left to play in the initial half.
Boyceville could not get a shot to fall again for another four minutes, while Elk Mound racked up another nine points. The Bulldogs got another shot to drop, making the score 20-4.
Luer’s squad struggled for the rest of the opening half, managing to score only 12 points against a hard-pressing defense from Elk Mound. The score going into the half was 42-12.
The Bulldogs showed some signs of life in the second half, getting some good looks that resulted in a trio of three-point shots from Bryce Larson and Logan Knudtson, but just could not build off the spark created by the duo.
A good portion of the second half was played with a running clock.
“It’s hard to get that deficit back,” Luer stated. “If we were down by 10, that would be a little different. When you’re down by 25, it’s hard to get that back.”
Luer hopes his team can stay confident and keep working hard in practice. He is encouraging his team to have a “short-term memory” and move on after each loss.
Junior Luke Knudtson led the Bulldogs effort with 11 points, while his younger brother Logan chalked up eight. Cooper Boesl tacked another five onto to the Bulldogs’ score, Jayson Gonzalez is credited with four, and Bryce Larson picked up three.
Elk Mound’s leading scorer was Ben Lambele, who nabbed 18 points in the game on four-of-five three-point shooting.
The Bulldogs played a non-conference game at Turtle Lake on December 20. They will take a nine-day break before heading to the Clayton Classic Invitational to take on Northwood on December 29 and Webster on December 30.
ELK MOUND 73, BOYCEVILLE 31
Elk Mound……………..…….42 31 — 72
Boyceville…………………….12 19 — 31
TEAM STATISTICS (FG-FT-F-T)
Elk Mound (22-2-11-73) D. Lew 2-0-1-13, C. Pritchard 1-0-0-5, J. Rubenzer 0-0-0-9, R. Mohr 1-0-2-5, B. Lambele 9-0-1-18, D. Black 0-0-0-3, N. Zurbuchen 1-0-1-2, C. Schreiber 3-2-1-8, M. Kinblom 1-0-4-2, C. Mavis 4-0-1-8.
Boyceville (9-4-11-31) J. Reisimer 0-0-1-0, C. Boesl 2-1-2-5, Lo. Knudtson 1-0-0-8, J. Gonzalez 2-0-2-4, B. Larson 0-0-2-3, H. Spenle 0-0-1-0, Lu. Knudtson 4-3-3-11.
THREE-POINTERS EM — D. Lew 3, C. Pritchard 1, J. Rubenzer 3, R. Mohr 1, D. Black 1; B — Lo. Knudtson 2, B. Larson 1.