By Janelle Fisher
City Pages Editor
GREEN BAY – The Red Raiders started the game strong with baskets by Dixon Holewinski and Colin Schultz.
The pair, along with Ethan Schmidt, were the leading scorers for Pulaski and Head Coach John Polkowski said their defensive skills were also crucial to the team’s success throughout the game.
“Colin does a lot for us,” he said. “And then Dixon extends that defense. He’s a bigger guy that can knock down shots for us and that’s exactly what he did. He battled all night for us — the Raiders — really doing a lot of the grunt work for us. We asked a lot of him tonight.”
Holewinski brought the score up to 7-0 with a three-point shot before the Tritons earned their first points with a pair of free throws by Jack Warden.
Pulaski added six points to its score while Notre Dame added four before the Raiders went on a six-point run courtesy of Schultz, Joseph Mijal and Holewinski.
Notre Dame’s Adam Guyette took back the ball for the Tritons and made a basket before Notre Dame called its first time out with 10 minutes left in the first half.
Pulaski followed soon after with its first time out, but not before Notre Dame’s Charles May and Drew Siudzinski and Pulaski’s Dylan Dorn all scored a basket each, bringing the score to 21-12.
Notre Dame came back to the court strong, with Andrew Rader, May and Guyette scoring a collective five points — the longest run for the Tritons — and bringing the score to 21-17 — which was the closest the score would be for the rest of the game.
To finish out the first half, Pulaski’s Schmidt, Brycce Wotruba, Schultz, Holewinski and Mijal scored an additional 17 points for the Red Raiders and Rader, Abe Augustine and Guyette scored an additional 5 points for the Tritons, leaving Pulaski up 38 to Notre Dame’s 22.
After an uneventful first two minutes at the start of the second half, Holewinski made a three-point basket for the Red Raiders, followed shortly after with a basket by Schmidt.
Nearly four minutes into the second half, Guyette made the Triton’s only three-point shot of the game, bringing the score up to 46-27.
After one more basket made by each team, Notre Dame called another time out.
When gameplay resumed, Mijal and Wotruba each scored three points in quick succession.
After an additional eight points for Pulaski and ten for Notre Dame brought the score to 62-39, Pulaski called its second time out.
Five more points for the Red Raiders and six for the Tritons brought on Pulaski’s final time out with just over five minutes left in the game.
Pulaski’s final points of the game came in the form of a seven-point run by Schultz and Mijal before Notre Dame’s Dugan Webster Jr. and Jack Frelich scored the Triton’s final four points, ending the game with a final score of 74-49.
Although the Red Raiders walked away victorious, Polkowski said he and the team are always looking for room to improve for the next game.
“That’s the ongoing question we need to ask ourselves after every game, ‘What do we need to improve on?’” he said. “It’s just never being satisfied — and we are not satisfied. We like where we’re at, but we’re not content. There’s more in the tank and there’s more we’ve got to find within our team to keep going.”