This story is sponsored by Forward Financial Bank
By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
SPENCER – The Spencer boys basketball team fought back time after time, but couldn’t overcome what Augusta threw at them in the final 5 minutes of the third quarter.
Augusta exploded with a 19-2 run to bust open a tight game and went on to a 74-55 win in a battle of Cloverbelt Conference East Division co-leaders on Thursday night at Spencer High School.
The Beavers led 35-24 at halftime after a 7-0 run to end the first half.
Spencer responded with an 11-4 run to start the third quarter. Mitchell Susa hit a pair of 3-pointers and Joe Meyers drilled another to cut Augusta’s lead to 39-35 with 5 minutes to go in the quarter.
For the rest of the period, Augusta took over.
Joe Whalen scored 11 of his game-high 36 pointers during the next four minutes and Augusta used six offensive rebounds during the 19-2 stretch to dominate the action.
“They got a lot of second chances, a lot of offensive rebounds off long rebounds, and whenever they got a second chance in that third quarter, they really took it to us,” Spencer coach Randy Reckner said. “They hit a couple of 3s, they hit some layups on back doors. They’re a good team, they have good shooters.”
Zach Nelson hit a shot at the buzzer to push Augusta’s lead to 58-37 and despite 11 points from Jeremiah Cattanach, Spencer never got closer than 16 points.
Mitchell Susa led Spencer with 15 points and Cattanach had 14.
“I thought our kids played really hard,” Reckner said. “I thought we made a couple of really nice runs at them, we just needed to do a little bit more than we did to win this game.”
Whalen hit 15 of 20 shots from the field, including four of nine from 3-point range. He scored 25 points in the second half alone as the Rockets couldn’t find a way to stop him.
“He’s a very good player, there’s no doubt about it,” Reckner said. “He hit a couple of 3s when we had kids all over him.”
Spencer plays at Greenwood on Tuesday.
Beavers 74, Rockets 55
Augusta 21 14 23 16 – 74
Spencer 13 11 13 18 – 55
AUGUSTA (74): Joe Whalen 14-20 5-9 36, Bradley Grunewald 3-6 2-2 13, Jaime Sieg 4-9 1-1 9, Zach Nelson 2-2 2-2 7, Marshall Mayer 2-3 1-3 5, Aaron Herrick 2-5 0-0 4, Noah Plewa 0-1 0-2 0, Damien Hadorn-Papke 0-0 0-0 0, Brandon Kimball 0-1 0-0 0. FG: 28-47. FT: 11-19. 3-pointers: 7-18 (Whalen 3-8, Grunewald 3-6, Nelson 1-1, Herrick 0-2, Kimball 0-1). Rebounds: 28 (Mayer 9). Turnovers: 11. Fouls: 17. Fouled out: none. Record: 4-0, 3-0 Cloverbelt East.
SPENCER (55): Mitchell Susa 5-13 1-2 15, Jeremiah Cattanach 4-6 3-4 14, Cody Esser 2-3 6-8 10, Joe Meyers 3-5 0-0 8, Calvin Lenz 3-5 1-1 7, Miles Weber 0-0 1-2 1, Bobby Pilz 0-2 0-0 0, Spencer Susa 0-0 0-2 0, Nick Johnson 0-0 0-0 0, Brenton Engevold 0-1 0-0 0. FG: 17-35. FT: 12-19. 3-pointers: 9-19 (M. Susa 4-10, Cattanach 3-3, Meyers 2-4, Pilz 0-2). Rebounds: 21 (Weber 7). Turnovers: 15. Fouls: 17. Fouled out: none. Record: 2-1 overall and Cloverbelt East.