By Greg Bates
Correspondent
DE PERE – One week before the start of the postseason, the West De Pere boys’ basketball had a nice tune up.
Bay Conference rival Seymour came to town in a battle of top-10-ranked Division 2 teams.
No. 8 West De Pere stayed with run-and-gun Seymour, but the No. 4-ranked Thunder, led by a season-high 27 points from Riley Murphy, pulled away late for a 68-61 victory.
West De Pere head coach Todd Deschane said he hopes his players learned a few valuable lessons about defense and hitting shots in critical portions of a game.
“Couple things we talked with the kids we can control: defensively, not recognizing Murphy in the second half, letting him get open shots and looks and that hurt us, obviously,” Deschane said. “Then free throws – it’s a mental thing. We missed [eight] free throws in the second half, that’s a huge difference. Then we missed probably five layups through some contact you probably should make. You make half of those, half your free throws and it’s right there – a ballgame and it’s a whale of a game then.”
The first time the two teams played, Murphy was held to seven points on seven shot attempts.
In the second meeting, the senior guard was 7-for-13 on 3-pointers.
“We just did lots of things where we back-screened, and we hit a couple of layups because his guy wouldn’t help,” Seymour coach Jon Murphy said. “They had to rethink how they were playing, and all of a sudden, Riley is open and the flood gates were going.”
Seymour’s Mason Dorn, one of the top 20 scorers in the state, was limited to four second-half points and 16 for the game.
Seymour, which beat West De Pere 70-61 Jan. 23, was up 28-18 before the Phantoms closed out the first half on an 11-2 run.
Jalen Thomas came off the bench and sparked the spurt with six points.
West De Pere (17-5, 9-5 Bay) took its biggest lead of the game, 35-32, on a Dawson Nordgaard basket.
Seymour (21-1, 13-1) responded with an 18-8 run to go up 50-43.
“We couldn’t find the hole at times,” West De Pere senior Marcus Van Vreede said. “We had our little runs, then for a while we went on a cold stretch where we didn’t hit anything.”
Alec Schneider, who scored a team-high 14 points, drained back-to-back three-pointers in 12 seconds to bring West De Pere within four, 62-58, with over one minute on the game clock, but Murphy hit all six of his free throws to seal the Seymour victory.
“We didn’t have clean looks,” Deschane said. “A two-possession game with 30 seconds left, we’re trying to get a quick three. It was a one-possession game there, and we didn’t hit some looks.”
Playoffs get underway Tuesday, March 3, and No. 2-seeded West De Pere hosts the winner of No. 7 Fox Valley Lutheran/No. 10 Pulaski Friday, March 6, at 7 p.m.
Seymour is the top-seeded team on West De Pere’s half of the sectional and Kaukauna is No. 3.
“That’s the nature of the beast,” Deschane said. “Northeast Wisconsin Division 2 is pretty solid. We are Looking forward to it.”
In a one-and-done scenario in the postseason, Van Vreede, a senior, said he knows what it takes for his team to advance.
He’ll share some advice with his teammates.
“You don’t have much time,” he said. “I’m a senior and my four years flew by faster than I thought it would. Lots of our team except for one is a junior, and it’s going to be tough. We have to play like it’s your last game.”