This story is sponsored by Total Electric
By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
MARSHFIELD – Any chance of a hangover from last week’s road trip to Mequon by the Marshfield boys basketball team was quickly thwarted.
The Tigers made 12 of their first 17 shots, opened up a double-digit lead in the first eight minutes, and rolled to a 70-34 nonconference win over Rhinelander on Tuesday night at the Fredrick Construction Fieldhouse at Marshfield High School.
Marshfield junior guard Brooks Hinson scored 21 of his game-high 28 points in the first half and outshot Rhinelander by himself. Hinson finished 12-for-16 from the field, which included four 3-pointers, while Rhinelander (6-4) went 12-for-40 for the game.
“The Christmas break for the guys, you spend the first four or five weeks with a routine of going to school, going to practice, having games,” Marshfield coach Chris Fischer said. “Then you have 10-11 days without school, the schedule we had with traveling to Hudson that last Friday before break, then to Concordia to play two ranked teams, stay over, a 10:45 morning game – to come out of that, there’s a chance for some type of let down and we didn’t have that tonight. That was the most rewarding part. To come out of that and play as well as we did tonight, as a head coach I’m pretty proud of the guys for that.”
Hinson had 15 points in the opening 10 minutes as Marshfield pulled out to a 23-13 lead.
The Hodags hung around for a bit as Truman Lamers and Will Gretzinger scored, but Marshfield closed the first half with an 11-0 that included two 3s from Hinson and another by Brant Freis, and led 42-19 at the break.
Rhinelander had an 8-0 run after another 3 from Freis to start the second half, before the Tigers finished things off.
A 17-0 run sparked by 3-pointers from Freis, Hinson and Landon Lee pushed Marshfield’s lead to 62-27.
Back-to-back baskets from Lee upped the Tigers’ lead to 40 and set forth a running clock for the final 8½ minutes as only six points were scored.
Lee ended up with 11 points and six rebounds, and Freis and Chris Pohl both chipped in nine points for Marshfield (10-1).
Lamers led Rhinelander with 14 points.
“We have to be careful that we don’t become too comfortable,” Fischer said. “As soon as you feel that level of comfort, that’s when you have letdowns and get yourself beat. It helps we have a really good nonconference opponent in Brookfield Central coming here Saturday (before a big matchup at Stevens Point in the Wisconsin Valley Conference on Jan. 9). That’s going to be a tremendous challenge for us.”
The game Saturday begins at 2:30 p.m.
Tigers 70, Hodags 34
Rhinelander 19 15 – 34
Marshfield 42 28 – 70
RHINELANDER (34): Jay Barkus 0-1 0-0 0, Noah Bell 0-0 0-0 0, Seth Noftz 1-3 0-0 2, Devon Feck 1-5 0-0 3, Truman Lamers 5-12 2-4 14, Evan Shoeder 2-7 0-0 6, Will Gretzinger 2-8 2-2 7, James Heck 0-1 0-2 0, Caden Sieker 1-2 0-0 2, John Currie 0-0 0-0 0, Aidan Lueder 0-1 0-0 0. FG: 12-40. FT: 4-8. 3-pointers: 6-20 (Shoeder 2-6, Lamers 2-6, Feck 1-3, Gretzinger 1-4, Noftz 0-1). Rebounds: 21 (Noftz 4). Turnovers: 7. Fouls: 8. Fouled out: none. Record: 6-4.
MARSHFIELD (70): Chris Pohl 4-8 0-0 9, Joey Ketterer 0-2 1-2 1, Maxx Oertel 0-2 0-0 0, Noah Daniels 0-1 0-0 0, Brooks Hinson 12-16 0-0 28, Brant Freis 3-7 0-0 9, Landon Lee 5-8 0-0 11, Afton Hamill 0-0 0-0 0, J.J. Steinbach 0-2 0-0 0, Jack Sternitzky 0-1 0-0 0, Valin Ramberg 2-3 0-0 6, Ethan Knecht 3-4 0-0 6, Magnus Machtan 0-0 0-0 0. FG: 29-54. FT: 1-2. 3-pointers: 11-31 (Hinson 4-8, Freis 3-6, Ramberg 2-3, Lee 1-3, Pohl 1-4, Knecht 0-1, Steinbach 0-1, Sternitzky 0-1, Oertel 0-1, Daniels 0-1, Ketterer 0-2). Rebounds: 33 (Knecht 6, Lee 6). Turnovers: 5. Fouls: 6. Fouled out: none. Record: 10-1.