Bulldogs done in by Bulldogs

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By Missy Klatt

CHETEK — The Boyceville Bulldogs’ boys’ basketball team ended its season the way it began, on the road at Chetek with a loss against the Bulldogs of Chetek-Weyerhauser.

This time though, despite the loss, Boyceville played a much better game. Unfortunately, this loss was in the first round of the WIAA Division 4 regional boy’s basketball playoffs thus ending Boyceville’s season.

Boyceville kept it close in the first half and were down by only six at the break, 18-24. Throughout the opening half the score was tied several times. Logan Knudtson had 16 of the Bulldogs’ 18, first-half points which included four buckets from outside the arc.

According to head coach Colby Dotseth, the game was a lot more competitive the second time around but conceded his players shot poorly as a team with the exception of Knudtson.

In the second half, Boyceville scored five of the first seven points including a three by Connor Sempf that pulled Boyceville to within three points at 26-23.

But Chetek-Weyerhaeuser then outscored Boyceville 20-3 over the next eight minutes to lead 46-27 with 8:25 to play. C-W ended up outscoring Boyceville 36-21 in the second half to win by a score of 60-39.

“We thought going into the half we could come out on top if we could just get some shots to fall which didn’t happen for us and it got ugly in the second half,” remarked Dotseth.

“Overall, I thought we really played a great team game defensively. You never want the season to end but for the boys to go out really giving great effort they should be proud of it. Offensively, we just couldn’t get balance with scoring as Logan Knudtson led us with 26 of the 39 points. I thought Walker Retz did a great job especially in the first half in guarding their big man who had a definite height advantage on Walker.”

C-W’s big man was 6’6” Kyle Bilodeau, who racked up 25 points for them, mainly on the inside. Chetek-Weyerhauser went on to lose to Spring Valley in the second round of the tournament.

Boyceville ended the season with an overall record of 4-18 and hopes for a brighter future.

For the season as a whole Coach Dotseth had many positive things to say about his team.

“Overall, it wasn’t a huge success as far as wins and losses on the year. But some positives to look at are we won our first conference game in two years and the second half of the season we played way more competitive as we had a seven-game stretch in the second half of the year where we either won or only lost by single digits in six of those seven games. Which was great to see the boys have to play in some pressure situations. I thought they were great learning moments and experiences for us.”

“Logan Knudtson, I thought had a heck of a senior season leading us in scoring at 15.8 points per game and led us in assists and was third on the team in rebounding,” continued Dotseth. “I thought Walker Retz really made great strides in improving throughout the season. Especially rebounding wise as he ended up finishing second on the team in rebounds. He hadn’t played competitive basketball since middle school so it’s never easy to just step on the basketball floor in varsity as a junior and compete and he really made some great improvements which I hope he is excited about.”

“Some of our sophomores in John Klefstad and Beck Wendland stepped up throughout the year and were really big leaders for us on the Junior Varsity and gave us great minutes in limited action on the varsity level,” said Dotseth. “The freshman group really started to play competitively on the JV level the second half of the year and I am excited for the progress they made and hopefully it turns into a big jump of improvement over the summer.”

“We have good numbers in the 8th grade group coming up so next year will be even more competitive for playing time. It will be tough replacing our three seniors (Logan Knudtson, Brendan Sempf, and Cade Klefstad) as those three really dominated the scoring for us and have put in big time Varsity minutes over the past couple of years. Hopefully having a summer to work with the boys we can keep improving and getting more competitive as we head into next year, always looking to get better that is a big goal of ours,” concluded Dotseth.

Boyceville (39)

FG-FT-F-T: Retz 0-0-0-0, B. Sempf 2-0-4-4, C. Sempf 1-0-3-3, Knudtson 11-0-2-26, Wendland 0-0-0-0, Larson 1-2-0-4, J. Klefstad 0-1-2-1, C. Klefstad 0-1-2-1. Total 15-4-14-39.

Chetek-Weyerhaeuser (60)

FG-FT-F-T: Herrman 2-0-0-4, Haas 2-1-1-6, Hanson 4-0-1-11, Grotburg 2-5-1-9, A. Kummet 1-0-0-3, C. Kummet 0-0-2-0, Jenson 1-0-0-2, Bilodeau 11-2-3-25. Total 23-8-8-60.​

Boyceville 18  21 – 39

Chetek-Weyerhaeuser 24  36 – 60

3-point goals: Boyceville: C. Sempf, Knudtson 4. Chetek-Weyerhaeuser: Haas, Hanson 3, A. Kummet, Bilodeau.