By Murray Gleffe
Correspondent
ASHWAUBENON — Kyle Krueger scored 27 points to lift Ashwaubenon to a 74-71 Fox River Classic Conference victory over Notre Dame Academy in a boys’ basketball game Dec. 17 at Ashwaubenon High School.
“I give all the credit to my teammates,” said Krueger. “They made great passes into the paint for me, and I worked hard to finish around the basket.”
Marcus Tomashek added 25 points for the Jaguars (2-2 overall, 2-0 FRCC).
The Tritons (2-2, 1-1) were led by Marcus Hornacek’s 22 points.
Notre Dame jumped out to an early 10-point lead behind the shooting of Hornacek and Chris Mitchell from beyond the arc.
Ashwaubenon eventually took the lead with three minutes remaining, going on a 22-5 spurt to take a 30-23 advantage at halftime.
Much of the damage was done with the inside-out production of Krueger and Tomashek.
“Basketball is a game of runs,” said Mark Tomashek, Ashwaubenon head coach. “I’m still learning on my end as a first-year guy with this program. A decade ago when I was at Denmark, we played quarters, and I think each game I get better at making adjustments.”
Ashwaubenon’s Eli Zollar powered up a layup and nailed two free throws after getting fouled to open the second-half scoring.
A bit later, Brady Wittig canned a triple, and Notre Dame was called for stepping over the end-line on an inbound play.
Krueger made the Tritons pay with a 5-foot, left-handed hook shot to give the Jaguars their biggest cushion of the night (45-28) with 11:38 left in the game.
Every time the Tritons clawed back into the game, the Jaguars had an answer on the offensive end.
The Tritons cut the lead to 62-58 after George Kress knocked down a baseline jumper.
With 1:21 left and Ashwaubenon up five points, Wittig took two consecutive charges on the defensive end.
The Jags went up nine points after scoring on back-to-back possessions for a 69-60 lead with 47 seconds remaining.
Notre Dame knocked down three late triples to make it close.
“One of our topics of discussion in practice was close out, high hands,” added Tomashek. “This team doesn’t care who shoots or scores the most points. It’s a group which cares for each other, and it showed down the final few minutes tonight.”
Box score
Notre Dame: 23, 48—71
Ashwaubenon: 30, 44—74
Tritons: M.Hornacek 22, Grzesk 13, Mitchell 11, Schumer 7, Kress 6, D. Hornacek 5, King 4, Schmid 3.
Jaguars: Krueger 27, Tomashek 25, Imig 6, Wittig 6, Vang 6, Zollar 4.