Colfax boys make statement with wins over Spring Valley and E-PC

After losing earlier in the season to both Spring Valley and Elmwood-Plum City, the Viking boys may be peaking at the right time after flying past the Cardinals 58-47 the second time the teams played Feb. 16, then three days later whipped the Wolves 68-57. The Vikings are 7-6 in conference play and 9-11 overall with a home game against Cadott and a final conference game at  Glenwood City this Thursday. Regional tournaments begin next Tuesday, March 1 with Colfax, the number five seed hosting Boyceville, the number 12 seed at 7:00.

Spring Valley

The game had a late start after the junior varsity contest went to three overtimes before the Cardinals pulled out a win, and the Vikings were more than ready to get the varsity game going. After Isaac Lee drained a three pointer and George Scharlau dropped in a deuce to knot things up at 5-5, the Vikings hit a bump when they fell behind 15-7. Colfax made a run after that with Aliymu Davis knocking down a free throw, Andrew Harmon scoring from the paint, Kedar Davis canning a trey then driving the lane for two and adding a free throw, making it 16-15 for the Vikings.

Spring Valley regained the lead at 22-20 before Jacob Larson knotted it up on a shot in the paint and Aliymu Davis put the Vikings back up with two more free tosses. The Cardinals hit two free tosses, one by Sean Borgerding, who scored 24 points against the Vikings the first time around, to tie it up on a free throw at 24-24, then Harmon gave Colfax a 28-24 halftime lead with a pair of buckets.

In less than six minutes, the Vikings were up 36-26 with help from back-to-back treys from Aliymu Davis and they kept the lead at nine on his jump shot. The Cardinals made a move to get back in it and cut the Colfax lead to 42-40 after Borgerding’s triple, but not to worry as Scharlau countered that with his own. Jarrod Rudi scored his only points of the game on a deuce, and after a Harmon trey and another bucket from Aliymu Davis the lead was upped to 52-44 with just under two minutes left. With just two fouls called on them at this point, Spring Valley needed to commit some more in a hurry to get the Vikings to the line and get the ball back. They managed to foul five times in a 20 second span but Kedar Davis was the wrong guy to foul as he canned two freebies. After a Cardinal three pointer was made on their possession, they picked an even worse Viking to foul as Prince went to the line twice and hit 4 of 4 to finish off the game.

Colfax drained 11 of 14 free throws in the game to go with seven treys while Spring Valley was 9 of 10 from the stripe with six triples. Aliymu Davis led in scoring for Colfax with 14 points to go with 12 by brother Kedar and 11 from Harmon. Borgerding was held to 14 after being guarded by several different Vikings.

“We knew we had to shut Borgerding down after how he played against us the first time,” coach Garrett Maas said. “We had Prince, Aliymu Davis and Lee take turns on him and they kept him off balance. But we moved the ball very well on offense and had pretty good shot selection. We also rebounded better and pushed the tempo,” he added.

COLFAX (58) A. Davis 4-4-6-14, K. Davis 4-3-3-12, Harmon 5-0-0-11, Larson 3-0-0-6, Scharlau 2-0-0-5, Prince 0-4-5-4, Lee 1-1-1-4, Rudi 1-0-0-2

SPRING VALLEY (47) P. Cipriano 5-3-3-15, Borgerding 5-3-4-14, Z. Boisen 2-3-3-8, N. Ka;mes 1-0-0-3, D. Bosshart 1-0-0-3, C. Anderson 1-0-0-2, D. Larson 1-0-0-2

THREE POINTERS: A. Davis 2, K. Davis 2, Cipriano 2, Harmon 1, Lee 1, Scharlau 1, Boisen 1, Kalmes 1, Bosshart 1, Borgerding 1

Elmwood-Plum City

If someone had told you after this game that Aliymu Davis was held scoreless, you probably would have figured the Vikings had lost. After dealing with foul trouble early on, Davis didn’t get a lot of playing time which forced some Colfax players to step up to account for Davis’ 11 point scoring average a game. That wasn’t a problem for the most part as the Vikings started with a 3-0 lead from Harmon’s trey and methodically built on the lead to eventually get it to 20 points in the second half.

A Kedar Davis trey and Larson’s put back and free throw made it 17-7 and Kedar’s steal, full court dribble and drive around two defenders for the deuce and a free toss to boot made it  20-7. With the ball in their hands and 30 second left in the half, the Vikings executed the final shot to perfection when Prince took a pass at the top of the three point circle and drained the shot with three seconds left to give the Vikings a 32-16 halftime lead.

“We wanted to come out fast and set the tone,” Maas said. “That meant taking care of the ball and taking good shots. We did that for the most part. A lot better than the first time we played them anyway.”

Harmon started the second half just like the first on another triple and after Kedar Davis followed suit then added a short jumper, it was 40-23 for the Vikings. Davis was obviously in the zone after knocking down two more shots from downtown to up the lead to 46-23. Things got a little ragged by both teams for a few minutes with players trying to out-steal each other, resulting in some pretty fast action on both sides. The Vikings missed a fast break layup and the first follow up attempt was missed, but Davis completed the third shot. On their next possession, Davis missed the layup but Larson was there to drop the ball in and it was 53-34. Davis was feelin’ it when he drained another shot from downtown Main Street, but a couple of seconds later,  Colfax committed their seventh foul with 6:12 left and the Wolves had their seventh rung up with 5:11 to go, resulting in plenty of free throw attempts by both teams. Colfax won that contest as Prince, Scharlau, Lee and Davis combined to knock down 12 freebies.

Davis scored a career high 26 points to lead all scorers with Prince and Harmon both adding 13. The Wolves’ Hunter Schoengarth, who ripped off 29 points in the first game against the Vikings, was held to just seven this time around. Colfax was 16 for 22 at the charity stripe and E-PC was 5 for 14.

COLFAX (68) K. Davis 9-2-2-26, Prince 2-7-9-13, Harmon 5-1-2-13, Larson 3-1-2-7, Lee 1-3-4-6, Scharlau 1-1-2-3

ELMWOOD -PLUM CITY (57) C. Leija 7-2-4-16, L. Baier 4-0-0-8, Schoengarth 3-0-2-7, D. Nelson 3-0-0-6, S. Hoyt 2-0-0-5, A. Ebensperger 1-3-5-5, W. Holt 1-0-0-2, K. Heit 1-0-3-2

THREE POINTERS: Davis 5, Prince 2, Harmon 2, Lee 1, Schoengarth 1, Holt 1