Sports

Westhope-Newburg hangs on against tough Titan team to advance

By Tyler Ohmann

02/14/2012

At halftime of Saturday’s region qualifier Westhope-Newburg appeared to be on their way to regions.

The Sioux had a 37-20 lead over Towner-Granville-Upham, their shots were falling, their defense creating turnovers, but they had been in this position before.

“It’s happened with this group before, and it’s like we come into halftime with a big lead and we should just go right back out, stay in the game and the flow,” said Sioux Head Coach Bob Beaudrie. “You don’t want to have that feeling that there’s going to be a let down, but you’ve got that feeling because it’s happened before.”

And with history repeating itself it only took TGU one quarter to erase the Sioux lead and head into the final quarter with a one-point lead of their own.

“We came out flat, we just couldn’t play our best,” Sioux guard Hunter Braaten said of the third quarter.

It wasn’t pretty, but after forcing overtime the Sioux received clutch free throws from junior Kodie Hancock and Braaten to give them a 61-60 lead with less than three seconds left.

But that was enough time for one last Titan shot.
Freshman Eli Luna got the ball and hoisted an open three-quarter court look.

“They had a good look at the end, and I thought it was going in when he (Luna) threw it up,” Beaudrie said.
He didn’t, and the clutch free throw shooting sent the Sioux packing for a trip to Minot and the Region 6 tournament.

“That was the concern when we got down the stretch, but I told them in the huddle, ‘you are going to make your free throws, this is getting old,’” Beaudrie said. “Not that, that had anything to do with it, but we didn’t shoot well during the game, but the free throws at the end definitely won it for us.”

“But we persevered. There was some things that didn’t go our way, but we got our stuff back together and finally finished,” Beaudrie added.

Braaten finished with 17 points, six rebounds, five assists and five steals in the win, including a perfect 5-for-5 from the charity stripe, a place he says he is comfortable at.

“I like the pressure at the free throw line, it makes them a little more fun to make,” Braaten said.

It was certainly a tale of the halves for the Sioux.

“The first half we wanted play a run and gun style, and get them running,” Beaudrie said. “And it was a 50-50 deal, in that we needed to hit shots from the outside. They are going to pack it in the middle and take away Kodie and Karlie, so we needed to hit from the outside. Once those started falling, then everything opened up for us.”

“In the second half nothing ever got in a flow in the second half, except for those last couple minutes,” Beaudrie added.

Braaten was given a lot of freedom on a couple of new plays that had the point guard driving down an open lane to either go to the hoop or dish to open teammates.

“He (coach) just thought of those this morning,” Braaten said. “We figured nobody could guard me too well.”

It was a strategy to hopefully neautrilize the height advantage TGU had over Westhope-Newburg. Three of the starting five for the Titans were 6-foot-5.

“We figured they were going to start their three bigs, and we wanted to match up man-to-man, so we had to bring in Ethan Miller to match up,” Beaudrie said. “Ethan came in and did a great job on a big kid.”

Miller is a 6-foot-5 sophomore himself, who scored his season average of five points in the game.

Kodie Hancock had 21 points and seven rebounds to lead the Sioux. Senior Wyatt Kitzman added 10 points and eight rebounds in the win.

The road to the region tournament started out on Thursday as the Sioux played host and fourth-seeded Dunseith in the first round.

After a back-and-forth battle, where both teams traded the lead, the Sioux eventually came away with a 63-57 win.

Braaten finished with 23 points and seven rebounds to lead the Sioux to victory.

Kodie Hancock had a double-double with 15 points and 14 rebounds, while Karlie Hancock had 11 points.

The Sioux lost to Bottineau in the second round to force them to fight for a region spot against the Titans.
In the Bottineau game Kodie Hancock and Braaten combined for 36 of the Sioux’s 51 points in a 64-51 loss.

The Sioux trailed by only two at halftime and even tied the game at 37 late in the third quarter, but the senior trio of Mark LaCroix, Justin McCloud and Devon Grenier proved too much for the Sioux to handle and they fell in defeat.

The Sioux also lost once more earlier in the week on Monday at Garrison. The 76-74 overtime loss was the Sioux’s 11th loss of the year.

Braaten and the Hancock boys combined for 61 points and 23 rebounds in the game. Kodie had 24 to lead all scorers.

The 10-12 overall Sioux will play the third game on Monday against top-seeded, and undefeated, Berthold from District 12 to open the region tournament in Minot.

“We’ll need to step up our defense and hit more shots, and get less turnovers,” Braaten said as key’s to beating a tough team like the Bombers.

Note:

As a note Braaten and TGU forward Luke Bacon played together this past summer in a freshman traveling team.

Braaten said, “It’s pretty fun to play against a teammate. You hate to see them lose, but I have to win too.”

Bacon finished with eight points in the loss.