Spartans come up short, Wheelers hit halftime wall

February 24th, 2016 by admin

IKM-Manning High School was the site of two Class 1A Boys Basketball District 14 Semi-finals on Tuesday night.

In the first game Exira-EHK came up a point short against Paton-Churdan as the Rockets grabbed a 38-37 victory. The Spartans took the lead in the second quarter with Paton-Churdan big man Noah Juergensen on the bench with three fouls but let their 5 point halftime lead slip away in the third quarter. The two teams see-sawed back and forth down the stretch and the Spartans had multiple opportunities to win the game but couldn’t get a few short chances to roll home. The Spartans had the ball down one with about 30 seconds remaining after Joe Towers missed the front end of a 1 and 1. After a timeout Freshman Cole Burmeister took advantage of a match-up and got into the lane for a layup but saw it roll off, Freshman Dakota Rold grabbed the rebound and tried to put it back in but that was no good as well. The ball then ended up back to the Spartans and they called their final time out with 12 seconds left. The ball ended up being in bounded from underneath instead of the sideline as Coach Doug Newton anticipated and the Spartans ended up having the inbound pass stolen by Noah Juergensen. Towers then hit two free throws on the other end before a desperation three by Brady Hansen came up short, Rold put the rebound back in as time ran out. Towers led Paton-Churdan with 12 points as they move on to the District 14 final on Thursday. Senior Brady Hansen and Rold both finished with 12 points for the Spartans as their season ends with a 17-6 record.

The Rockets will face the IKM-Manning Wolves on Thursday after they pulled away from the Audubon Wheelers in the second half of the nightcap. The Wheelers were down 10 after one quarter but rallied to trail by only 4 at halftime. The second half though was all Wolves. They raced away to a 15 point lead after three quarters and won the game 76-43. IKM-Manning was led by star Senior Guard Kyle Wagner who poured in 38 points in the win. Jared Vollstedt also added 12 points for the Wolves. Audubon got 10 points apiece from Lake Hacker and Mitchell Nelsen in the loss. The Wheelers end their year at 14-7.