By William Soquet
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
GREEN BAY – After trailing the Hortonville Polar Bears by five points at halftime, the West De Pere Phantoms boys’ basketball team fell by a final score of 70-50 at the Sun Drop Shootout on Dec. 28.
It was a role reversal for West De Pere (3-4), which beat Freedom by a score of 70-49 at the same tournament on the previous day.
“Tonight, we were just stymied by the zone [defense] a little bit and the shots weren’t falling,” West De Pere coach Todd Deschane said.
The game started off a little messy with both teams committing turnovers in the first 20 seconds of the game.
With just over a minute of game clock elapsed, Hortonville’s Zack Day put the first points of the game on the board.
After Langdon Nordgaard missed a look for the Phantoms, August Maurer gave Hortonville a 4-0 lead on a midrange step-back with just over 2 minutes played.
West De Pere did not get on the board until 3 1/2 minutes ran off the clock, with Ethan Heck connecting on a floater off an inbounds pass to bring it to a 4-2 ballgame.
Play continued to be slow over the next couple minutes, with each team committing an unforced travel.
Then scoring broke open, with the Phantoms taking an 11-6 lead on the back of an Andrew Baumgart triple.
The game then proceeded to be tied at 11 and 13, with the contest remaining a one-possession affair for most of the first half.
With just under seven minutes to play, Hortonville opened up a two-possession lead, going up 20-16.
Heck then found a way to break the Polar Bear zone defense, scoring four key points in the late going to bring the Phantoms back within a point, 25-24.
A pair of baskets, one on a second chance and one on a fast break, gave Hortonville a five-point lead at half, 31-26.
Coming out of halftime, the scoring picked up, although equally for both teams in the beginning of the half.
However, Hortonville then proceeded to put on a clinic in up-tempo basketball.
Several fastbreak and transition baskets found the Polar Bears go on a 12-0 run in about two minutes of game time.
The run was also helped by a stingy defense that clogged passing lanes, creating turnovers and opportunities for quick points.
With the lead sitting in the high teens with 10 minutes to go, the Phantoms mounted something of a rally.
Nordgaard had a bucket off a Hortonville turnover and then set up Keon Kirk on a nice post play on the next offensive possession.
He then found himself with room in the paint a couple possessions later and put in a light floater to bring the gap down to 10 with 8 minutes to play.
The Polar Bears then went back to their uptempo style and put five points on the board in the next 40 seconds, effectively eliminating all momentum that West De Pere had.
“I challenged them a little bit in a timeout we had and talked to them about being more fundamentally sound and handling things a little bit better,” Deschane said. “We started to get back into it, but then we gave up too many easy looks.”
With just over 4 minutes to play, the gap stood at 68-48, and with bench players coming in for both teams in the closing minutes, the final score came to 70-50.
Heck, who came into the game averaging 17.4 points per game, finished with 19 for West De Pere, including 12 in the first half. Thomas Walder chipped in 11 and Baumgart scored nine, all on 3-pointers.
“We’re trying to be a patient offense, trying to get great looks for guys coming off screens,” said Deschane about his team’s offensive output.
Hortonville boasted 23 points from Camden Kuhnke and 20 from Maurer.