By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
SPOONER – The undersized and cold-shooting Marshfield Columbus Catholic boys basketball team kept up with Prentice for the first 22 minutes of Friday’s WIAA Division 4 sectional semifinal, but it was the last 10 minutes that did them in.
The Dons led 25-22 with 2:26 to go in the third quarter before being blitzed by Prentice, which closed out the final 10 minutes of the game outscoring Columbus 31-11 and won 53-36 and move on to Saturday night’s sectional final against Clayton at Spooner High School.
The Buccaneers (22-4) scored the final seven points of the third quarter and made their first four field goal attempts of the fourth quarter to pull away from Columbus (20-6), which shot just 25.5 percent from the field (12 of 47) and 18.5 percent from 3-point range (5 of 27).
“It wasn’t our night shooting,” said Columbus senior Tyler Mancl, who was the only Don to shoot above 33 percent. Mancl made 5 of 13 shots, four from 3-point range, to finish with 14 points. “Other things weren’t working either. They were there, we just weren’t capitalizing. We lost to a very good team tonight.”
Columbus bottled up Prentice’s leading scorer Nick Erickson for much of the game but once the Bucs found away to get it inside to their 6-foot-4 senior, the Dons didn’t have an answer.
Erickson scored the final five points of the third quarter to put Prentice up 29-25, then added six points in the first 2:38 of the fourth quarter to help the Buccaneers open up a 37-30 advantage. Nick Erickson and his sophomore brother Nate Erickson each finished with 15 points to lead Prentice.
“The end of the third quarter and start of the fourth quarter they really snapped the ball to the opposite block a few times, our zone guy was too high on our press and they got three easy lay-ups,” Columbus coach Joe Konieczny said. “That was big and then we just didn’t make shots. Those are shots that we made when we won games and we missed them when we lost games. We just missed them in a game that cost us our season.”
Prentice was able to finish off the Dons from the free-throw line. As Columbus shot just 3 of 13 from the field in the fourth quarter, Prentice was put on the line and responded by making 16 of 20, including 8 of 8 from senior guard Landon Cummings.
“We’re small,” Konieczny said. “Against teams our size or smaller we were able to get to the paint, but against a team like Prentice, with the Ericksons sitting back there, we just looked intimidated anytime we got inside, and maybe a little tentative when we shot from the outside.”
Each team had major runs in the first half, producing a tight first 16 minutes.
After Mancl scored the first five points of the game for Columbus, Prentice scored the next 13. Two baskets by Nick Erickson and a 3-pointer by Brian Kraegenbrink put the Bucs up 13-5.
With the Dons trailing 15-7, neither team scored for the first 3:30 of the second quarter until Mancl, Boyle and then Mancl again connected on 3-pointers three straight trips down the court for Columbus to give the Dons a 16-15 lead. Both teams were again silenced and neither team found the hoop over the final 2:52 of the half.
Columbus led for much of the first 5 minutes of the third quarter, but never by more than three. David Green’s hoop with 2:26 left made it 25-22 before Prentice went on its game-changing run to end the Dons’ season.
“It was fun,” Mancl said. “We were picked to finish fourth in the (Cloverbelt East) conference and ended up winning it. No one ever thought we’d get this far and we got this far. It was so much fun and I love everyone in this school.”
Buccaneers 53, Dons 36
Columbus 7 9 9 11 – 36
Prentice 15 0 14 24 – 53
COLUMBUS (36): Mike Iwanski 1-3 0-0 2, Dodge Langreck 0-5 2-2 2, Travis Pischel 1-6 0-0 2, David Green 2-11 0-0 4, Tyler Mancl 5-13 0-0 14, Jared Boyle 3-9 5-6 12, Paul Selz 0-0 0-0 0, Brandon Nikolai 0-0 0-0 0. FG: 12-47. FT: 7-8. 3-pointers: 5-27 (Mancl 4-10, Boyle 1-6, Pischel 0-5, Langreck 0-3, Green 0-3). Rebounds: 17 (Iwanski 6). Turnovers: 15. Total fouls: 21. Fouled out: none. Record: 20-6.
PRENTICE (53): Brian Kragenbrink 2-8 2-2 7, Landon Cummings 0-1 10-10 10, Sam Hartmann 0-0 0-0 0, Casey Heikkinen 0-0 0-0 0, Trevor Maki 0-0 0-2 0, Nate Erickson 6-11 3-3 15, Nick Erickson 6-7 3-6 15, Derek Rohde 1-1 2-2 4, Dan Christianson 0-1 0-0 0, Tanner Andreae 0-3 2-2 2, Tyler Enders 0-0 0-0 0, Teague Shoup 0-0 0-0 0. FG: 15-32. FT: 20-27. 3-pointers: 1-7 (Kraegenbrink 1-5, Nate Erickson 0-1, Andreae 0-1). Rebounds: 32 (Nick Erickson 8). Turnovers: 21. Total fouls: 14. Fouled out: none. Record: 22-4.
