Sports
Pair of wins set stage for exciting week
Tyler Ohmann
01/24/2012
The Bottineau Braves bounced back from a loss to the third-ranked Berthold Bombers by getting two wins including their fourth straight district win.
That district win came in a 66-58 victory over Towner-Granville-Upham on Thursday in Towner.
Bottineau led the whole way and were up by 11 points heading into the final quarter. However, Luke Bacon, who led the Titans with 20 points, rallied the Titans, but ulitmately fell short.
Senior Justin McCloud had 38 points and was instrumental in the victory. Fellow seniors Mark LaCroix (13) and Devon Grenier (nine) also contributed offensively in the winning effort.
The Braves real test of the week was a rematch of the region championship from last year against the Bishop Ryan Lions.
Bottineau exacted their revenge with a 60-51 win over the Lions in Bottineau.
“It was awesome to get the win especially after that loss to them in the region (last year),” McCloud said. “Even though half those players didn’t play we still wanted to give it to them.”
The Braves led by three heading into halftime, but Head Coach Nate Simpson felt they played all right in the first half.
“I thought we played OK in the first half, they were hitting shots and we weren’t,” Simpson said. “In fact we didn’t shoot well the entire game, we missed several little bunny shots that we normally make.”
McCloud finished with 20 points despite riding the pine for much of the second half due to foul trouble.
His teammates stepped up in his absence however as LaCroix scored 15 and Grenier got 14 much of it in the second half.
“It is nice to see the other guys play well when I’m not on the floor,” McCloud said. “Come tournament time we’re going to need that in case I do get in foul trouble. We are going to need other guys to make plays.”
McCloud did provide one big wave in the second half however as he provided a big display to help shift momentum the Braves way in the fourth quarter.
Only up by a basket McCloud fresh in to the game stole the ball and went uncontested for a big dunk that drove the near capacity crowd wild.
“I don’t even know what I was thinking, but my legs felt good because I got a rest in the third quarter because I was in foul trouble,” McCloud said. “I was just feeling confident and it was a big momentum shift.”
Simpson was just glad that McCloud got the dunk down.
“Justin always comes in off a rest and gives us a spark, and that was a huge spark,” Simpson said of McCloud’s dunk. “He’s been wanting to do that all year and thankfully he put it down in a crucial situation.”
While McCloud did foul out with just over 90 seconds left the Braves had the game in hand and kept it under wraps.
“Our man-to-man defense was as best it has been all year tonight,” Simpson said. “We switched back between man and zone, and I thought we did a nice job defensively on a tough team to match up with for us.”
“That was something I was proud of with this team is that we won this game without having Justin for as many minutes as he normally plays,” Simpson added.
A big part of the game staying as close as it did was the Lions inside play, especially that of center Will DeCoteau, who led the Lions with 14 points.
“He was a focus for us because of his size. Our plan was to front him and get weak side help, and we were late on our weak side help two or three times which cost us,” Simpson said. “For the most part I thought Devon (Grenier) did a nice job on him and forced him into some tough shots.”
McCloud too was happy with their effort and what they learned about DeCoteau inside.
“He got his bunnies every now and then and we were a little late on help side so he got some easy buckets,” McCloud said. “But if we see him again we’ll know what to do.”
Bottineau will face a tough district schedule in the upcoming week as they head to Rugby tonight to face the tenth-ranked Panthers. Then they will come home for a test against the district’s top team last year, Velva.
“We have three district games and two of them are on the road, so that is our focus right now,” Simpson said. “It’s fine that we play away because districts are away and we need to get used to playing in a hostile environment.”
“All the games are going to be tough from here on out,” Simpson added.
McCloud too has his sights set on Rugby.
“We are just going to have to keep our confidence up, and our next test is going to be Rugby,” McCloud said. “They are a solid defensive team with a lot of athletes. We’re going to have to play good defense on them, and do what we do offensively to win the game.”
The wins over TGU and Bishop Ryan put the Braves at 14-1 on the season and 4-0 in district play.