This story is sponsored by: The Marshfield Tiger Booster Club
By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
MARSHFIELD – The Marshfield boys basketball team couldn’t have started out any better, but a pesky Holmen squad wasn’t about to go away quietly and nearly pulled off the impossible.
The Tigers raced out to an eye-popping 21-0 lead and was able to hold off a second-half rally from Holmen to win the nonconference matchup 68-59 on Friday night at the Fredrick Construction Fieldhouse at Marshfield High School.
Holmen cut Marshfield’s seemingly insurmountable lead to two at one point, and were as close as three on three different occasions, but each time the Tigers were able to respond with a basket to take some of the pressure off.
Marshfield outscored the Vikings 11-6 over the final 5½ minutes, making 8 of 9 free throws, to finish off the hard-fought victory.
“I don’t know what the difference was from our start and what happened a few minutes after that,” Marshfield coach Chris Fischer said. “We still had a nice lead at half. We knew what Holmen was about, that they were dangerous, because the matchups we different on both sides. We had a little of size on them, but they had a little bit of quickness on us. Our bigger guys needed to guard the perimeter. Early on, we did that very effectively, and as the game wore on, maybe we got a little tired.”
Marshfield made its first four shots of the game to take a quick 9-0 lead which led Holmen to call a timeout less than two minutes into the game.
It didn’t help, as the Tigers ripped off 12 more points in a row, which included 3-pointers from Brooks Hinson and Valin Ramberg, to go on top 21-0 lead until Holmen was able to make a pair of free throws with 10:41 left in the half to end the skid for the Vikings.
Marshfield led 25-4 before hitting a cold streak of its own and Holmen’s Keenan Eisermann drilled back-to-back 3-pointers for the Vikings’ first field goals around the 5-minute mark.
The Tigers took a 33-17 lead into halftime and Holmen was able to quickly whittle the deficit down as it got hot from 3-point range. The Vikings made 6 of 8 from deep over the first 7½ minutes of the half, the final one coming from Jase Lesser, to cut Marshfield’s advantage to 46-44.
Hinson, who had a game-high 24 points for the Tigers, responded with a 3-pointer, and a few minutes later when Holmen cut it back to three, Ethan Knecht scored on an offensive rebound.
Another 3-pointer from Brant Freis, his only basket of the game, pushed Marshfield’s lead back to six at 57-51 with just under six minutes left and the Tigers were able to hold on from there, leading by at least four the rest of the way.
Chris Pohl was 8-for-10 from the field and added 21 points for Marshfield (2-0), which shot 23-for-39 overall and 15-for-19 at the free throw line.
Eisermann led Holmen (1-2) with 20 points.
“Brant hit a big 3 from the corner, Brooks hit one from the corner, and we hit some big free throws at the end,” Fischer said. “We took a positive step forward tonight. A lot of our guys are new to the varsity scene. Young and inexperience shows up when the physicality and speed of varsity basketball take over. We’re not used to it yet.”
Marshfield will have a week off before hosting Wisconsin Rapids next Friday, Dec. 8, as part of a girls-boys doubleheader. The girls game begins at 6:30 p.m., with the boys to follow at approximately 8:15 p.m.
Tigers 68, Vikings 58
Holmen 17 42 – 59
Marshfield 33 35 – 68
HOLMEN (59): Kaiden Wilber 2-11 0-1 4, Alex Berget 5-7 2-2 15, Payton Seekamp 0-5 0-0 0, Keenan Eisermann 7-11 2-3 20, Jerin Rink 0-1 0-0 0, Jase Leeser 2-8 0-0 5, Parker Lindberg 2-3 0-0 6, Toby Neumann 0-0 0-0 0, Aiden Farr 0-1 2-2 2, Landon Ellis 1-1 0-0 2, Clay Helmreich 0-1 0-0 0, Noah Ertz 2-4 1-4 0-0 5. FG: 21-53. FT: 7-12. 3-pointers: 10-23 (Eisermann 4-7, Berget 3-3, Lindberg 2-3, Leeser 1-4, Helmreich 0-1, Seekamp 0-1, Rink 0-1, Wilber 0-3). Rebounds: 23 (Ertz 6). Turnovers: 11. Fouls: 17. Fouled out: none. Record: 1-2.
MARSHFIELD (68): Chris Pohl 8-10 3-4 21, Joey Ketterer 0-1 0-0 0, Maxx Oertel 0-0 0-0 0, Noah Daniels 0-0 0-0 0, Brooks Hinson 9-17 3-4 24, Brant Freis 1-3 0-0 3, Landon Lee 0-2 6-6 6, Valin Ramberg 2-4 0-0 5, Ethan Knecht 3-4 3-4 9. FG: 23-39. FT: 15-19. 3-pointers: 7-15 (Hinson 3-5, Pohl 2-2, Freis 1-2, Ramberg 1-3, Knecht 0-1, Lee 0-2). Rebounds: 28 (Hinson 7). Turnovers: 16. Fouls: 13. Fouled out: none. Record: 2-0.