Sports

Undersized Jacks outwork, out hustle opponents to start season 2-0

By Tyler Ohmann

11/06/2012

Despite a couple of rough performances the Dakota College at Bottineau men’s basketball squad came away from the Kevin Thom Classic unscathed.

The Jacks won both of their games in the season-opening tournament by defeating both the Winnipeg Jr. Wesman and Canadian Mennonite University.

“For us we have extremely high standards right now, and as a coach you’re never really where you want to be at this point of the season,” said Jacks first-year head coach Corey Fehringer. “You always want to be a couple steps ahead, but sometimes we have to realize as coaches and players that this is a new system, there are new thoughts, new philosophies, new faces, new roles, so not everyone is going to start on the same page, but I think we’re in the same book right now.”

The Jacks began the weekend with a narrow victory over a strong and well-coached Wesman squad.

The back-and-forth contest was a tug-of-war between both teams, with nobody really gaining an upper hand. The Jacks eventually held off the Wesman and came away with the win.

“We had nine players to play with and everyone stepped up and did their thing,” said sophomore Ben Veith. “It’s the beginning of the season and everyone is still trying to learn to play with each other.”

Veith a forward from Melbourne, Australia is one of seven returners on the Jacks squad.

Veith was called on to come in and bring energy and defense to the DCB frontlines, a role he accepts with no qualms.

“I love that role,” Veith said. “Every time I step onto the court I want to bring as much energy to the team and make my teammates better players.”

Freshman Kristoff Walker led the Jacks with 22 points and six steals in the game.

The game was close, but Fehringer believes the team just needs time to work out their kinks in order to be more successful.

“I think time is the biggest thing that we need,” Fehringer said. “Coach Fagerlund coached football, I coached volleyball, so we lost a lot of important time, but I feel like that’s OK, it is a long season, but now that we can invest the time and energy we can make the right strides and move forward.”

The Jacks followed up their victory from Friday evening with another one on Saturday afternoon against Canadian Mennonite University.

The Blazers were unable to match the DCB intensity in the game, which led to some big performances for the Jacks in a runaway win.
Veith believes that a strong and close team, who has already bonded in only a few short weeks, helps out on the court.

“We’ve got a good bunch of guys together and we’re tight as a team,” Veith said. “Not just on the court, but we’ve been doing a lot off, like team building and exercises, and just telling each other stuff about our lives to get closer.”

Sophomore Jayden McMillin led the Jacks with 34 points and nine boards in the win. Also strong for the Jacks was freshman Billy Engel, the Cooperstown, N.D. product who nearly had a triple double with 18 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists.

Veith thinks the Jacks have a good chance to do well this season.

“I think as the year progresses we should do pretty good,” Veith said. “We have some key players sitting out this semester, but we have no conference games in the first semester, so that should help us out.”

Veith had a strong weekend as well as he had 14 rebounds (nine offensive), shot 8-of-13 from the field and had three steals in just 55 minutes of play.

The 6-foot, two-inch Veith played against bigger opponents all weekend, and thinks the Jacks did well inside, despite being undersized.

“We’re a smaller team, but I think we defended the post well, despite being undersized,” Veith said. “We need to work on getting off ball screens, because those guards seem to be getting open too much.”

Fehringer said he and the Jacks are hungry to start working on their weaknesses and become a better team come Monday at practice.

“Our job is to come back Monday ready to work and ready to get better,” Fehringer said. “We’re confident in the process, and that in the long term we’ll get on the same page and be able to be competitive with whoever we play.”

He was happy with the two wins.

“There was a lot of growing up that needed to be done this weekend, and I think we saw it,” Fehringer said. “I got my feet wet as a coach as well, but the guys at the end of the day played extremely hard, didn’t get outworked.”
“We wanted to be 2-0 on Saturday night, and come Saturday night we were 2-0,” Fehringer added.

The 2-0 Jacks will travel to Devils Lake for the Lake Region Classic this upcoming Thursday through Saturday.