Mounders begin season with wins over Crickets and Hilltoppers

Starting the year with a pair of road games, the Elk Mound boys’ basketball team won a close contest at Fall Creek 62-61 Dec. 8, then traveled to Glenwood City to begin conference play three days later and trounced the Glenwood City Hilltoppers 70-34.

Fall Creek

The Crickets have been contenders in the always tough Cloverbelt West Conference for the past several years and are coming off a 21-4 record a year ago. With the Mounders missing a couple of players due to injuries, it was time for others to step up which was the case as the team combined for nine treys in the contest and went 7 for 13 at the charity stripe in the game.

Elk Mound held a slim 30-26 lead at the break as sharp shooter Brandon Bohl canned a couple of triples and Cole Tyman, along with Dane Lew who wasn’t expected to be back on the court yet after dealing with an injury, both drained a triple of their own. Chandler Schreiber scored all seven of his points in the second half including 3 of 4 free throws, Lew added eight points on a pair of treys and a deuce, Ben Lambele came up with five points on a three pointer and a close range shot and Colin Svee added a bucket. The Mounders were up by four points before a Cricket triple with less than a second left made it a one point difference.

“For our first game, I thought we did some good things,” coach Chris Hahn said. “We rebounded the ball pretty well on both ends of the floor and we had some great energy from Colin Svee and Brandon Redwine. Cole Tyman and Dane Lew led us offensively with some of Cole’s shots being very huge. Our regular point guard Alex Hollister was out and Dylan Black handled those duties very well. We fouled too much though and need to do a better job moving our feet on defense to limit the other team’s touches in the paint,” he added.

Tyman led the Mounders in the scoring department with 18 points with three deuces, three triples and 3 for 3 shooting at the charity stripe. Lew tallied 13 points on three treys and a pair of close range shots.

ELK MOUND (62) Tyman 6-3-3-18, Lew 5-0-0-13, Lambele 4-0-0-9, Schreiber 2-3-4-7, Bohl 2-0-0-6, Redwine 2-1-2-5, Svee 2-0-0-4

FALL CREEK (61) C. Folkers 9-4-4-22, I. Schmidt 4-0-0-11, S. Stienke 4-3-3-11, S. Rubeck 3-1-1-7, J. held 2-2-2-7, J. Olson 1-1-2-3

THREE POINTERS: Lew 3, Tyman 3, Schmidt 3, Bohl 2, Lambele 1, Held 1

Glenwood City

When your team makes 10 shots from behind the arc in the first half alone, it’s pretty safe to say they are going to come up with the win. Tied at 9-9, Lew, Bohl, Tyman and Black all knocked down a trey for a 21-9 lead and after the Toppers scored, Black hit another long ball to make it 24-11. The Mounders continued to score while shutting the Toppers down and after another Lew trey it was 35-11, and Black drained his third triple for a 43-15 advantage. The first half ended with Elk Mound up 48-17 and they continued to utilize their pressure defense in the second half as they upped the lead to 50-17 after Schreiber nailed a triple of his own. They started to pound the paint from there as Lambele scored four times from close range and Erik Strand added two deuces and Bohl, Tyman and Elliot Johnson all scored once from close range to finish off the lop-sided win.

“We started a little slow in the first few minutes but were able to pick apart their zone defense with great ball movement,” Hahn said. “We passed up good shots for great shots and our pressure forced them to play faster than they were comfortable playing,” he added.

Three Mounders finished in double figures in the scoring department including Lambele with 15, Bohl with 13 and Tyman with 10.

ELK MOUND (70) Lambele 7-1-2-15, Bohl 4-2-2-13, Tyman 4-0-0-10, Lew 3-1-2-9, Black 3-0-0-9, Strand 2-0-0-4, Schreiber 1-0-0-3, Svee 1-0-0-2, Johnson 1-0-0-2, Redwine 1-0-0-2, J. Rubenzer 0-1-2-1

GLENWOOD CITY (34) N. Mrdutt 4-0-0-10, R. Schulz 3-0-0-6, P. Hill 2-0-0-4, J. Ormson 2-0-0-4, D. Hierlmeier 1-1-2-3, K. Evans 1-0-0-3, N. Schone 1-0-0-2, Q. Taylor 1-0-0-2

THREE POINTERS: Black 3, Bohl 3, Lew 2, Tyman 2, Mrdutt 2, Schreiber 1, Evans 1