WADENA – The Wadena-Deer Creek boys basketball team had a chance to shake up the Section 8-2A pecking order on Monday night.
The Trojans’ fast-paced offense was too much to handle as Barnesville went on to rout the Wolverines 77-59 at Wadena-Deer Creek High School.
“I was a little frustrated,” WDC head coach Kevin Tumberg said. “Obviously, when you lose by 20, things didn’t go your way. We had certain things on our game plan that we needed to do – like having to stop this guy or do these certain things – and we didn’t execute. That’s definitely the frustrating part. I just told the boys that you might be able to win some games just doing enough, but against the good teams in the section, you have to execute everything perfectly to compete.”
It was an evenly-matched contest for most of the first half. Barnesville jumped out to an early 9-3 lead before WDC answered with a 7-0 run. The two teams traded buckets before the Wolverines found themselves in front at 16-15 with less than 12 minutes left in the half.
However, Barnesville claimed the biggest run of the first half. The Trojans outscored WDC 14-2, taking a 29-18 lead into the locker room.
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The second half started with two straight Wolverine buckets to cut the lead to five. Barnesville ramped the pace, and WDC suddenly found themselves down 51-41. A Peyton Church jumper cut the Trojans’ lead to eight, but the Wolverines wouldn’t get back to within ten for the rest of the game.
Tumberg lauded Barnesville’s ability to create transition buckets.
“One big key we had was they are up-tempo, so we have to sprint back on defense, and they got a ton of points in the second half off of transition,” he said. “They beat us down the court, got some and-ones, and they made some big shots inside. It was our lack of hustle that caused them to go on their big run in the second half.”
Church finished with a game-high 23 points, while Teshe Loer had 19. Tumberg praised his junior guards, who single-handedly kept the Wolverines in the game offensively.
“Church has been a guy that we have relied on all year to score the ball,” he said. “Luckily, tonight was a great night for him. He kind of kept us in the game. He had a ton of big shots in the first half and stayed hot in the second. The great thing about Peyton is when he gets going, and he is confident, look out because he can keep going and going. It is good to see a performance like that out of him with a big week of games coming up.”
Tumberg was unhappy with his team’s performance against a perceived Section 8-2A contender. He understands that a game like this will happen against good competition, and his team needs to learn from it ahead of another big matchup against Pelican Rapids.
“The biggest thing we have to do is flush it,” he said. “When you play good teams and good competition that is in your section that you know you might play in the playoffs, you have to make some buckets. We certainly don’t care about how we did tonight. Come tomorrow, Pelican (Rapids) certainly doesn’t care. You have to be ready for the new team and the new challenge. Tomorrow is just as important of a game for section standings and seeding goes. We just have to put this one behind us and be ready for Pelican.”
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