Colfax boys come from behind for overtime win over E-PC Wolves, tripped up by Toppers

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by Marlys Kruger

Sports Correspondent

After losing by ten points to the Elmwood-Plum City Wolves earlier in the season, the Colfax boys  had to put their nose to the grindstone to overcome a 12-point halftime deficit to pull out a 59-53 overtime win over the Wolves February 13 in the Vikings’ home gym. Three days later, they traveled to Glenwood City with high hopes of sweeping the Hilltoppers but things didn’t go as planned as they were trounced by the Toppers 76-44.

Colfax (5-8, 8-14) played Monday at Wausau East and hosts Mondovi this Thursday in the final conference and regular-season game.

The Vikings open the WIAA Division 4 playoffs on the road next Tuesday. Colfax (#10) will be in Shell Lake (#7) for a quarterfinal game.  

Elmwood-Plum City

The Wolves had just two conference wins coming into the game, and in the win over the Vikings they knew they had to slow the pace to keep Colfax from putting up a lot of points. The plan worked once so E-PC head coach Kyle Webb used the “never change a winning strategy” idea and tried it again. The plan worked with the Vikings scoring just 15 points in the first half with nine of those points coming from triples by Blake Johnson, Elijah Entzminger and Mason Yarrington. Although the Wolves weren’t exactly burning up the net on the offensive end, their defense forced the Vikings into a ton of turnovers with their zone defense, and the shots from long range Colfax attempted couldn’t find the hoop, resulting in E-PC holding a 27-15 halftime advantage.

The first nine minutes of the second half didn’t show much of an improvement for the Vikings. Entzminger managed to steal the ball and score on a layup while Yarrington drilled another trey and Aiden Fischer dropped in a pair of free throws to cut the deficit to 29-22. After a bucket and free toss by E-PC, a sense of urgency seemed to appear for Colfax and their defense began shutting down the Wolves scorers and they began to assert themselves in the paint.

Logan Swartz and Fischer both scored from close up, Fischer drained a three-point shot and Swartz once again used his height advantage to drop in two more buckets to put the Vikings up 33-32. Another triple from Fischer gave the Vikings a little breathing room, but a Wolves’ player hit two free throws to close the gap. Fischer connected on two of his own, but the Vikings were called for their seventh team foul with 7:37 left. A technical foul was added on and with two free tosses and a shot in the paint it was 38-38.

E-PC pulled ahead 40-38 then committed their seventh team foul with 5:13 on the clock so you can guess where a lot of the points from both teams were going to come from. Johnson started with two free tosses for a 40-40 score but an E-PC bucket put them back up. Orion Nichols put his name in the score book with a spinning layup to knot it up again and Blake Allen from E-PC and Entzminger traded a pair of freebies. 

Allen hit two more free tosses and Birtzer added another and the Wolves went up 47-44, but Johnson dropped down two of his own. Birtzer went to the line once again and made his first shot, and appeared to make the second but a lane violation nullified it. With 22 seconds to go and down by two points, Entzminger made it look way too easy as he took the inbounds pass and dribbled straight down the middle of the court and was untouched as he set the ball in the hoop to tie it up at 48-48. The Wolves had 6.7 seconds to score but the aggressive, but careful defense shut down the Wolves to send the game into overtime.

Nichols had just two points in the game but he had one of the biggest plays in the game as he stood his ground and took a charge to stop the Wolves from scoring right away. Fischer took advantage of the play and scored for a two-point lead. Colfax coach Mark Noll called a timeout to set up his plan for the last two minutes but his players must have not heard it correctly as they allowed Allen to swipe the ball and score on a layup to tie it up again. 

Entzminger drove the lane again for a bucket and the free toss, but Maxwell said “hold on” as he followed suit and it was 53-53. Entzminger hit a jumper and added another free toss, while the Wolves were off the mark on several three-point attempts. Johnson finally put the game on ice with a 3-for-4 performance at the charity stripe.

Entzminger led all scorers with 19 points including eight in the overtime period. Fischer added 16 and Johnson 12. Colfax was 15-for-20 at the foul line with six triples. E-PC was led by Auth with 11 points. The Wolves connected on 15-of-24 free tosses and made three treys.

Glenwood City

There probably is no real explanation as to how the Vikings lost by the margin they did. Colfax beat the Hilltoppers 65-50 a month ago and both teams had the same players in the lineup as this game. Glenwood City’s zone defense smothered virtually every player other than Entzminger throughout this entire game while getting double digit points from four of their own players. Colfax fell behind early once again down 5-0 before Entzminger drilled a triple, and after he canned another one they were behind 12-6.

Johnson banged home another trey after the Vikings missed a couple of shots in the paint, but their defense wasn’t able to keep up with the Toppers who pulled ahead 18-9. Colfax settled down with Fischer scoring from close range, Entzminger draining a pair of free tosses then scoring twice on fast break layups to cut the deficit to 18-17. Brady Thompson upped the Topper lead with a bucket but Entzminger knotted the score with another triple.

The Toppers scored from close range and with 7:11 showing on the clock, the Vikings picked up their seventh foul of the half. Although the Toppers made just two free throws in those final minutes, the Vikings couldn’t afford to be too aggressive on their defense and the Toppers scored in the paint four times. Entzminger drilled a jumper, Yarrington canned a triple and Fischer dropped in two free tosses and the teams went into the intermission with the Toppers up 32-27.

Both teams were cold from the floor as they both missed their first four shots but Entzminger finally broke the ice with a close range shot. Viking fans were anticipating a scoring streak by their team but after an Entzminger put back, it was the Toppers who put the points up. In fact, they put 14 consecutive points up in a matter of minutes and suddenly it was a 51-31 lead for them. Swartz halted the streak with a pair of free throws then proceeded to foul out of the game with 8:26 left.

Glenwood City was scoring most of their points on transition layups or free throws while the Vikings just weren’t able to score much at all. Nichols dropped in a free throw and hit a jumper, Fischer scored in the lane and Entzminger scored on a putback by rebounding a ball among three players all taller than himself, but the deficit was 63-40. Theo Hovde canned a triple and Grant Palewicz dropped in a free throw for the final Colfax points.

Entzminger scored 21 points to lead the Vikings and after Fischer with his six points, no other Viking had more than three points. Colfax drilled six treys and was 8-for-13 at the charity stripe. Olson was high man for the Toppers with 21 points while Tyler Harrington added 15. Glenwood City hit only two triples in the contest but were 16-for-20 at the foul line.