Mounder boys sweep Vikings on hardcourt
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COLFAX senior Nathan Hydukovich (#2) put this paint shot over the outstretched arm of Elk Mound defender Aiden Bartholomew (#20) when the squads met on the Mounders’ home court February 18. Hydukovich finished with five points in the Vikings’ 41-48 loss to the Mounders. —photo by Shawn DeWitt
by Marlys Kruger
Sports Correspondent
ELK MOUND — For the second time this season, the Elk Mound boys’ basketball team used a fast start to defeat the Colfax Vikings, this time on the Mounders’ home court Friday, February 18. A little over a month ago, Elk Mound blew out the Vikings 65-22, but this game played out quite differently with the Mounders winning 48-41.
Elk Mound was coming off a huge win over Boyceville in which they shot over 60 percent from three-point land with 13 triples. The Vikings were headed in the opposite direction, having lost their last three games, including one against Dunn-St. Croix Conference leader Spring Valley just 24 hours earlier.
It was senior night for the Mounders and it appeared it might be a repeat of the first contest when they began the game with three-point attempts flying, connecting on two of them in the first few minutes. Terry Mercer hit the first one and Ryan Bartig drained another after Brex Todd came up with a steal and layup and just like that it was 8-0 for the Mounders.
Tristan Lenz put the Vikings on the board with a free toss, but another Mercer triple made it 13-1. The Vikings began to regroup however, and used a seven point run to close the gap. Close-range shots by Jack Scharlau and Lenz along with a huge three pointer from Ryan Albricht cut the Mounder lead to 11-8. During the run, the Mounder sharp shooters went stagnant as they mis-
FAST-BREAK OPPORTUNITY — The Vikings’ Nick Jensen (#42) took to the air to score two points on this fast break during last Friday’s conference game in Elk Mound. Jensen finished with four points but Colfax came up short, as Elk Mound swept the regular-season series with a 48-41 victory. —photo by Shawn DeWitt
fired on five shots before Sam Wenzel scored from the paint. The Vikings continued to get the ball into the hands of Lenz, their 6’5 post player, resulting with Lenz scoring from close range.
Both teams struggled offensively after that but eventually the Mounders’ leading scorer, Kaden Russo, scored on a drive through the lane for a 15-10 Elk Mound advantage. The rest of the half produced only seven points between both teams with Aiden Bartholomew and Wenzel dropping in buckets around five minutes apart while Nate Hydukovich hit a free throw and Nick Jensen scored in the paint and it was 19-13 in the Mounders’ favor at the intermission.
LONG-RANGE JUMPER — Mounders’s senior Terry Mercer attempted this three-point shot in the first of Elk Mound’s February 18 conference contest versus Colfax. The Mounders won the game 48-41. —photo by Shawn DeWitt
Elk Mound started to heat up when Russo led off the second half with a shot from beyond the arc. After Elijah Entzminger countered with his own triple for Colfax, the Mounders banged in two more, one each from Bartig and Russo. Jensen scored on a put back but the Mounder lead was at 10 points, 28-18. Entzminger was on fire himself as he drained his own trey and Hydukovich scored from the paint to cut the Elk Mound lead to 28-23.
Wenzel and Hydukovich traded buckets twice and Scharlau scored on a put back but the Vikings were not able to gain any ground when Bartholomew canned a pair of free throws to keep the Mounders up at 34-27.Bartholomew kept his own scoring drive going with two shots in the lane and suddenly his team was up 38-27.
There was another long stretch before either team had any success getting the ball in the basket, which was a credit to both defenses. Bartig finally scored on two free throws, coming off of the fourth charging call on the Vikings in the contest and Lenz added Colfax points on a put back.
ELK MOUND senior Brex Todd (#12) put in two points on this drive early in a February 18 home game against rival Colfax. The Mounders swept the Vikings thanks to a 48-41 win in last Friday’s game. —photo by Shawn DeWitt
Jerome Delikowski scored his first points of the game for Elk Mound from under the hoop and with the clock down to under five minutes, the Vikings were down 42-29 and needed to score points fast. The Mounder defense had other thoughts and their tight defense, mostly a 1-3-1 zone with some switching to man-to-man, wouldn’t let the Vikings have a clear shot at the basket. It took over a minute before Lenz finally scored from close range and after the Mounders came up empty on three shots, Bryce Sikora dropped in a pair of free tosses for his first two points of the contest, leaving Colfax down 42-33 with less than three minutes to go.
The Vikings stepped up their own defense and forced the Mounders into a couple of turnovers, but they only managed to score on one Sikora free throw. The Vikings were forced to foul and for them, they fouled the wrong person, but for the Mounders it was the right guy as Bartig went to the charity stripe three times and hit all six of his free throw attempts.
Entzminger made it interesting with a three pointer from way beyond the arc and a close range shot, but the clock was running out and he ended the scoring for both teams on a driving layup with seven seconds left.
“Our kids played their tails off,” Colfax coach Mark Noll said after the seven-point loss.
“We had a couple of plays that if they had gone our way I believe the end would have been different. We are really coming together at the right time of the year. We are starting to really excel at our roles and our defense is allowing us to stay in games. Once we start to make more shots, watch out,” he exclaimed.
Bartig was high scorer for both teams with 14 points while Russo, the Mounders leading scorer with a 16-point average finished with 11 to go with eight from Bartholomew. Elk Mound drained seven triples and went 10-for-12 at the foul stripe.
The Vikings were led by Entzminger with 13 points and Lenz added nine. As a team they knocked down four shots from long range and 5-of-10 free tosses.
Both teams finish off the regular season with a conference game Thursday with the Mounders (7-6, 13-10) traveling to Spring Valley and the Vikings (4-9, 8-14) hosting Elmwood/Plum City.
Regional play begins a week later with Colfax (#10) traveling to Mondovi (#7) on Tuesday, March 1 to open the WIAA Division 4 playoffs while Elk Mound (#3) received an opening round bye in the Division 3, Sectional 1B bracket and will host the winner of Adams-Friendship (#11) and Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau (#6) game on Friday, March 4.