On Feb. 17 the Irish boys basketball team played at home against the Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted Lakers. It was a close game, but the Irish couldn’t redeem themselves after losing to the Lakers earlier in the season and fell by a score of 87-82.
“This was a fun and exciting high school basketball game, it’s too bad we came out on the losing end,” assistant coach Brad Baumann said. “Howard Lake came into the game playing very well, they had won seven straight and beat their last four opponents by at least 13 points in each of those, and we played them very tough from start to finish.”
In the first half, the Irish shot 35.6 percent compared to the Lakers’ 42.4 percent. The Irish only missed one of their free throws, while the Lakers missed four. At halftime, the Irish were up 43-36.
“Overall, our defensive effort was pretty good, even though we gave up a lot of points, we still forced them into tough shots,” Baumann said. “Unfortunately, we did really struggle to get defensive rebounds and loose balls, especially late in the game.”
In the second half, the Irish shooting dropped to 34.3 percent and the Lakers went up to shooting 43.6 percent. The Lakers forced overtime and the Irish couldn’t overcome the Lakers, losing by five points.
“It was one of those games where, even though we let a lead slip away at the end, it really wasn’t do to us losing it, it was more of Howard Lake just making some big plays,” Baumann said. “We didn’t have a lot of turnovers and we shot a decent percentage.”
David Stokman was the leading scorer with 26 points. Zach Johnson added 19 points and grabbed 11 rebounds.
“You just have to give them credit: They got the big rebounds and hit the big shots when they needed to, and that’s kind of been their MO all year, they’ve had many games over the course of the season where they’ve pulled out a close win at the very end, and again unfortunately for us this was the second time they knocked us off in overtime this year,” said Baumann.
More information and stats appear in this week's Messenger.
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