Boys Basketball: Clintonville rides second-half run to road win

OCONTO FALLS — The Clintonville High School boys basketball team carried the momentum from a late first-half spurt into the second half, going on an 18-2 run that eventually helped the team to a 67-55 North Eastern Conference win over Oconto Falls on Friday.

After getting down 18-9 to a hot-shooting Oconto Falls, Clintonville was able to go on a 7-0 run to tighten the game up. Just when it looked like the Truckers might surge ahead, senior Aiden Polzin — the team’s leading scorer who had seven of the team’s point at that juncture of the game — was tagged with his second personal foul with 7 minutes, 2 seconds to go until halftime.

“When Aiden went out with his second foul, I pulled him out and started wondering when I might have to put him back in,” said Clintonville coach Ryan Mattson. “But our players really got it together with him on the bench. They cut it to one (30-29) by halftime, which was great because then we had a really fresh Aiden Polzin to come in and help us in the second half.”

Clintonville juniors Cameron Mauel and Nathan Morse carried the team with Polzin on the bench, combining to score the team’s next eight points. With the Truckers down six with under two minutes to play in the half, sophomore Jesse Wilson knocked down a big 3-pointer before junior Klay Barkow added a field goal to make it a one-point game at halftime.

With Polzin rested and momentum on its side, Clintonville dominated the first seven minutes of the second half to break open a tight game.

Oconto Falls had the first basket of the second half, but Clintonville got a triple from Polzin, a fastbreak basket from Morse and a 3-pointer from Morse in about a minute-and-a-half span to go up 37-32 and force Oconto Falls to burn a timeout.

The hosts knocked down a pair of free throws after the quick break, but the Truckers responded with a Polzin bucket, triples from senior Presley Rosenow and Mauel before two free throws from Polzin to make it 47-34 with 11:39 to play.

“(Coach Keary Mattson) really got on our butts about that (a strong start to the second half) and told us to just come out and play like a team and play how we are,” said Polzin. “We just came out and did it.”

Oconto Falls was able to trim its deficit to single digits a few times over the rest of the game, but Clintonville always had an answer.

Polzin converted a field goal, and-one and 3-pointer that kept Clintonville’s lead at 10, 55-45, with 4:25 to play.

The Truckers pushed the lead back up to 13 points, but the Panthers made it an eight-point game with 1:47 to play. Clintonville sealed up the win with clutch free-throw shooting, with sophomore Cole Rosenow, Mauel and Morse all making two free throws on one-and-one opportunities.

The NEC win was the Truckers second of the week, upping the team’s conference mark to 5-3.

“It’s huge,” said Morse of the conference road win. “We’re trying to get on a winning streak here and get us back up top in the conference. We got a couple more games coming up that we think we can win — we just got to keep playing hard.

Polzin finished with 16 second-half points to finish with 23 for the game. He knocked down two 3-pointers and seven of the team’s 15 free throws.

Morse connected on three triples and tallied 19 points, while Mauel added 15.

Clintonville 29 38 — 67

Oconto Falls 30 25 — 55

Clintonville (67): Cameron Mauel 4-6 15, Presley Rosenow 0-0 3, Jesse Wilson 0-0 3, Cole Rosenow 2-2 2, Klay Barkow 0-0 2, Nathan Morse 2-4 19, Aiden Polzin 7-9 23.

Oconto Falls (55): Joey Walters 1-2 12, Dylan Thomson 0-1 0, Garrett Vervelde 0-0 6, Mitchell Manns 2-4 10, Isaac Raddatz 2-2 6, Jarod Parsons 2-2 16, Daylen Hischke 0-0 2, Zach Parsons 1-1 3.