The Gresham Community High School boys basketball team led 36-19 at halftime of Thursday’s Central Wisconsin Conference-10 game against Bowler, but turned up the pressure in the third quarter to go on and swamp the Panthers 68-39.
Undefeated Gresham (9-0, 6-0 CWC-10) outscored Bowler 25-6 after coming out of the locker room at the half.
Gresham coach Jeff Zobeck wasn’t happy with the 10-point lead his team opened up in the first quarter, at one point in the second quarter subbing all five of his players on the court to express his displeasure.
“We didn’t bring the energy,” Zobeck said. “We just wanted to execute better and we weren’t executing.”
“In stretches we played well,” Bowler coach Ted Kietlinski said. “In stretches we did not play well. To me, the difference in the game, even though we were down 17 at half, Gresham came out and were unbelievable good starting that third quarter. … Gresham played lights-out in that third quarter. That was the difference.”
Gresham senior Christian Haffner, coming off a record-setting 47-point performance Tuesday night, scored nine of his game-high 18 points in the third quarter, which was off his 30.5 points per game average. He opened the game with eight points and finished with four 3-pointers.
Bowler (5-4, 2-4 CWC-10) would cut into its deficit in the fourth quarter, led by Chase Nueske, who scored 10 of his team-high 16 points in the period.
“He’s one of the leading rebounders in the state,” Kietlinski said. “He’s an undersized power forward or center at 6-foot-1, but he’s gotten more physical. He’s learned how to use his body inside better. This has been a nice first half of the year for him.”
Nueske leads the CWC-10 with 10.6 rebounds per game.
“One of our goals was to emphasize getting the ball in the post today,” Kietlinski said. “I don’t think we did that as well as we needed to, obviously.”
Zobeck is confident others will step up if teams commit to taking Haffner out of the game. Some of that was evident Thursday. Sophomore Neal Cerveny scored 13 points, including a trio of 3s. Freshman Drew Haffner also put in three 3s.
“Some teams are going to do things to take Christian out of it,” Zobeck said. “… Other guys got an opportunity, some of them handled that better than others.”
Senior Kalen Fischer scored six points in limited minutes in the second quarter. Senior forward James Kazik also stepped up with 11 points, four rebounds and three blocks. Senior Killian Eggert scored eight points and led the team with five rebounds.
“The big thing is to be mentally prepared,” Zobeck said. “If (a team) wants to put that much energy in to stopping Christian, I have 100 percent confidence in this team. There’s a lot of good players on it, guys that shoot it, guys that can score around the basket.”
Bowler (39)
Montez 1 4-6 7, Sanapaw 1 0-0 2, Kazik 3 0-0 6, Nueske 6 4-5 16, Strassburg 1 0-0 2, Oswald 2 0-0 6
Gresham (68)
D. Haffner 3 0-0 9, Cerveny 5 0-0 13, Kazik 4 3-4 11, Eggert 4 0-0 8, C. Haffner 7 0-0 18, Fischer 3 0-0 6, Ile 1 0-0 3
Bowler 10 9 6 14 — 39
Gresham 20 16 25 7 — 68
Categories
