Boyceville boys win pair, stay perfect on hardwood
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FLYING HIGH above his Gilmanton defender, senior Simon Evenson scored two on this layup and finished with 15 points in the Boyceville boys’ 30-point home win in the November 28 basketball game.
—photo by Shawn DeWitt
After a season opening win in Independence, the Boyceville boys’ cagers added a pair of wins this past week to improve to 3-0.
Hosting Gilmanton as part of a twi-night doubleheader with their respective girls’ teams last Monday evening, November 28, the Boyceville boys turned the nightcap into a run-away victory as they prevailed 77-47.
The Bulldog followed that up by taking a 65-62 overtime road win in Augusta this past Thursday, December 1.
Boyceville will put its unblemished record to the test with three contest this week including a pair of conference battles against last year’s co-champions.
The Bulldogs opened Dunn-St. Croix play last night (December 6) at Durand-Arkansaw. They return to their home court on Thursday to welcome Spring Valley. The Panthers and Cardinals shared the 2021-22 boys’ conference basketball championship. Boyceville will end the week taking on Bloomer in the Northwest Classic at UW-Stout on Saturday, December 10.
Gilmanton
The Boyceville boys held a slight 11-9 advantage with just over 12 minutes remaining in the first half of its non-conference home contest against Gilmanton November 28.
But the Bulldogs suddenly stepped on the offensive gas pedal and outscored the Panthers 34 to 11 the rest of the way and headed into the locker room with a 45-20 halftime advantage. In that span, senior Simon Evenson scored 12 of his 15 points including a pair of triples and junior Grant Kaiser netted eight of his team-high 17 points.
BOYCEVILLE’S junior post player Grant Kaiser put in two of his game-high 17 points when the Bulldogs hosted Gilmanton in a non-conference boys’ basketball contest November 28. Boyceville won 77-47. —photo by Shawn DeWitt
The Bulldogs kept the offensive pressure on in the second half as it added another 32 points for a 77-47 win.
In the second half, Evenson added his third trey of the game and Devin Halama put down two from behind the three-point arc to finish with 11 points. Gilmanton’s Hunter Guenther led all players with 20 points.
“Overall, as a team it was another great team win!” said Bulldogs’ head coach Colby Dotseth. “We played the up-tempo pace of game we wanted to play and forced them to turn the ball over and it allowed us to get up over 70 shot attempts which we want to do every game. We did a great job as a team giving up the basketball for better shots, and we crashed both the offensive and defensive glass really well.”
As a team, Boyceville shot 32-for-75 from the field, hit 7 of its 13 free throw attempts and went 6-for-30 from the 3-point line. The Bulldogs’ finished with 22 offensive rebounds and 33 defensive rebounds and had 20 turnovers and 14 assists.
“As the season goes on hopefully our percentages from the 3-point line increases as we have gotten a lot of good looks early in the season from that range but they just haven’t gone in for us at the rate we would like them to,” stated Dotseth.
“Overall, when you win by 30 it is hard to not be happy with everyone’s effort and game performances,” he concluded. “It is early in the season, but we have guys who have accepted their roles on the team and it is has really helped early in the season with our team chemistry.”
Augusta
Unlike their home game with Gilmanton three days earlier, the Bulldogs’ shots just were not falling when they traveled to Augusta for another non-conference tilt Thursday, December 1.
Despite making just 22 of its 72 shot attempts including seven-for-31 from three-point range, Boyceville was able to come away with a 65-62 overtime win against the host Beavers.
“Overall to come away with a victory after shooting as poorly as we did was really big for the boys,” Dotseth said. “Last year, as a team, we would of really struggled to dig ourselves out of a hole when we trailed almost the entire game. But we had great effort defensively the entire second half and forced them into some big timing turnovers and we also sped the game up and I thought we did a great job making them play our tempo of basketball.”
Trailing 29-24 at the intermission, Boyceville outscored Augusta 35-30 in the second half to force overtime when the game was knotted at 59 all at the end of regulation.
Two-point hoops by Simon Evenson and Nick Olson and a 2-for-4 performance at the charity stripe by Grant Kaiser was the difference as the Bulldogs outpointed the Beavers in the extra frame, 6 to 3, to take the 65-62 win.
Evenson was the Dogs’ scoring leader with 19 points and Grant Kaiser followed with 14 points. Logan Barnett had 22 for Augusta.
Boyceville did finish 14-for-20 at the line while Augusta was 9-for-22.
“Overall as a team we have been giving great effort on the court with the minutes we are playing and doing a great job of buying in defensively,” continued Dotseth.
“We will try to work on cutting down on our turnovers and then just making sure our shot selection is good. We do those things and continue to play our pace of basketball we will really compete against these conference teams,” he concluded.