By Greg Bates
Correspondent
DE PERE – Twenty days earlier, the Seymour boys’ basketball squandered a 15-point halftime lead and fell to rival West De Pere.
In the Bay Conference rematch Friday, Jan. 22, Seymour had a 12-point advantage at the break, but this time around, never let West De Pere get within eight the rest of the way in a 60-47 victory.
“We’re learning how to finish,” Seymour head coach Bobby Kuchta said. “When you hold a team in the 40s, you’re going to win lots of games.”
Seymour and West De Pere, both 6-2, are now tied for second place in the conference, a half-game behind 6-1 Xavier.
Both teams control their destiny and play Xavier one more time with a chance to earn at least a share of the conference title.
In the first matchup Jan. 2, West De Pere pounded the ball inside to 6-foot-9 post Dawson Nordgaard, who had 18 points.
The Phantoms, which won 60-56, also got key points from their guards.
Kuchta said he had a different strategy against West De Pere in the rematch.
“We planned to play off of some guys and help on Nordgaard,” Kuchta said. “He still had 14, but that’s less than what he did last time. Our game plan worked well.”
Seymour’s Mason Dorn, who finished with a game-high 34 points, had 12 points, as the Thunder (10-5) jumped out to a 19-9 lead.
West De Pere (9-7) fed the ball inside to Nordgaard, the son of a former professional player, Jeff, for a basket, and Seymour led 34-22 at halftime.
Michael Moran hit a shot for the Phantoms to cut it to a 42-34 deficit for the home team with 10:46 remaining, but every time West De Pere trimmed the lead to single digits, Seymour had an answer.
The Thunder’s lead shrunk to as little as nine points with 8:34 left, but the Phantoms never threatened the rest of the way.
West De Pere, which had only five second-chance points, converted on seven 3-pointers in the game, finishing about 25 percent from beyond the arc.
“We were playing slow all night long,” West De Pere coach Todd Deschane said. “We didn’t help ourselves offensively. We want to move the ball around a few times and get great looks from the movement of our offense, and we didn’t do enough of it, unfortunately.”
Seymour controlled the tempo of the game.
“When we were up 10, we had two, three-minute possessions, which is exactly what you want to do,” Kuchta said. “Run some clock and get wide-open 3s or layups, and that’s what we got. That was deflating for them.”
The long possessions seemed to wear down West De Pere’s defenders.
“It took lots of work, but coach said ‘take your time, move it around and things will work out,’” Seymour guard Logan Griesbach said.
Lukas Ricker added nine points for West De Pere, while Griesbach put in eight for Seymour.
Seymour has won its last four games, the longest streak of the season.
“These last couple of games we’ve been doing good and working as a team,” Griesbach said. “We should be able to keep it going.”