Trailing by 6 points with five minutes left, the Lena High School boys basketball team made a furious comeback to pull even with 23 seconds remaining.
A technical foul with nine seconds remaining sent Lena junior Connor Heise to the free-throw line with the game deadlocked, 65-65.
Heise knocked down both free throws, but the Wildcats then missed a layup, giving Valley Christian one final attempt to win the game.
Sophomore Wesley Schiek did just that, hitting a tightly contested fade-away 3-point basket at the buzzer to give Oshkosh Valley Christian a 68-67 victory Dec. 29 in the title game of the Lena Holiday Tournament.
“That’s a ridiculously tough shot, fading away on the sideline,” Lena head coach Jeff Heimke said. “To hit it, that’s tough.”
Prior to Schiek’s heroics, free throws helped Lena erase a fourth-quarter deficit. Senior Matt Marquardt hit all six of his free throws in the run, Nash Haney converted a one-and-one opportunity and Dalton Anderson made a driving layup before Heise made a layup with 23 seconds remaining to tie the game.
The Wildcats needed the comeback despite leading the entire first half, even holding Valley Christian scoreless for the first six minutes to jump out to a 7-0 advantage en route to a 30-26 halftime edge.
“I thought our kids off the ball sank into the lane well,” Heimke said. “We forced them to take a lot of outside shots for a period of time there, and toward the end of the game, that kind of went away, and they got to the rim a few times at the end of the second half.”
Lena 6-foot-2 junior Hunter Borchert recorded 4 points in the first 16 minutes of the game, but was valuable on the defensive end in slowing down the visitors before suffering a high-ankle sprain late in the half.
The injury took some much-needed size away from the Wildcats in the championship game of their 37th annual tournament.
The Wildcats (3-3, 2-2 Marinette & Oconto Conference) converted 29 of their 30 free-throw attempts, while Valley Christian made 8 of 15.
Valley Christian (4-3, 2-3 Trailways North), which secured its second Lena tourney title, committed 22 fouls, including 15 in the second half.
“We’re just typically, in most games, the smaller, quicker team,” Heimke said. “If they play man, we need to get inside and draw fouls. We did a good job of penetrating tonight.”
Dalton Anderson led the Wildcats with 20 points, while Nash Haney tallied 18 and Heise scored 15 points.
“We will get out and run, but we’ve got to start coming out on the right side of those close games,” Heimke said. “We dropped a few this year that were close games at the end. We’ve just got to get better at finishing those out.”
Shieck finished with a game-high 29 points. His older brother, Adrian, had 14 points.
Oshkosh Valley Christian (68)
D. Dunn 1 0-0 2, W. Schiek, 10 7-9 29, Kiefer 3 0-0 6, M. Dunn 3 0-3 7, Olszewski 5 0-0 10, Rueger 0 0-1 0, A. Schiek 6 1-2 14.
Lena (67)
R. Marquardt 0 6-6 6, M. Marquardt 0 2-2 2, Anderson 6 6-6 21, Staidl 0 1-2 1, Borchert 1 2-2 4, Heise 3 8-8 15, Haney 7 4-4 18.
Oshkosh Valley Christian 26 42 — 68
Lena 30 37 — 67
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