Sports
Braves down Panthers, clinch district's top spot
By Tyler Ohmann
01/31/2012
With their toughest week in the District 11 regular season upon them the Bottineau Braves basketball team stepped up to the challenge this past week downing both Rugby and Velva to clinch the No. 1 seed in the upcoming playoffs.
“I’d say we are playing our best ball right now, and we need to keep that going in the districts,” said senior Devon Grenier. “If we keep that going, I’m sure we can win the districts, but we have two more games until tournament time, and that’s when it all matters.”
Grenier found his groove from beyond the arc in the game against Rugby and finished with four three pointers and 12 points, including two big threes to open up the second half and help erase a nine-point halftime deficit.
Once the shots started falling, the Braves came back and took it to the Panthers with a 65-55 victory.
Entering the game the Braves and Panthers were tied atop the District 11 standings at 5-0.
Seniors Mark LaCroix and Justin McCloud also put up big numbers against the Panthers with 23 and 20 points respectively.
Kyle Lovcik led the Panthers with 25 points, but guard Jayden Welk was held to six points in the game.
Grenier continued his hot shooting from beyond the arc in an 86-60 demolition of the Velva Aggies in Bottineau on Friday night. The win clinched the top seed in the distrcit for Bottineau, who is now 16-1.
“We’ve all been playing good lately, plus it was senior night and everyone was confident,” Grenier said. “Everyone played well and I’m glad.”
“When me, Mark (LaCroix) and Justin (McCloud) click, and the rest of the team, we can win games,” Grenier said.
Grenier said his success from deep came from confidence.
“Confidence is key, and once I made one, I just made the rest,” Grenier said. “We’ve played well lately, and that too as helped me make more threes.”
McCloud and LaCroix scored heavily too as the pair combined for 53 of Bottineau’s 86 points. McCloud had 31 and LaCroix had 22. Senior Matt Bowers added eight and senior Joel Niewoehner hit two free throws at the end of the game to score the first points of his varsity career.
The Braves made a living off of second-chance points in the game as they crashed the offensive boards hard. Grenier said it always makes it easier when a team can do that.
“When you get the rebounds you control, and offensive rebounds help even more,” Grenier said. “We are usually good at getting second chance points.”
The Braves closed out their district schedule last night against Drake-Anamoose. Scores and stats were unavailable by press time.
The final Bottineau game will be at 5 p.m., Saturday at St. John.
The District 11 tournament begins on Feb. 9 in Dunseith.
Though the task of making it past districts is the main focus, Grenier said that the prospect of getting a second chance at Berthold, who gave Bottineau their only loss this season, is still in the back of his mind.
“It is always good to get some revenge, and our goal is to get to state and nothing less,” Grenier said. “I’m sure we’ll have to go through them to get to state, and it will be a rough path to get there and hopefully we will do it.”