Sports
Braves season ends at districts
Tyler Ohmann
02/19/2013
The Bottineau Braves season came to end this past weekend at the District 11 Tournament in Rugby.
Bottineau lost their 13th and 14th straight games to Rugby and Velva, who both advanced to the region tournament.
First on Thursday the eighth-seeded Braves took on the top seed Panthers. Early on Bottineau hung on with the Panthers, who led by five after the first quarter.
The Panthers expanded the lead to 16 by halftime, and the exploded in the third quarter in route to a 75-30 win.
Four Panthers had at least nine points, led by District 11 Senior Athlete of the Year Kyle Lovcik’s 23.
Bottineau was led by junior Garrett Pollman, who had nine points. Jake Carroll and Parker Engelhard and Christian St. Claire each had six points in the losing effort.
The season ended on Friday as the Braves couldn’t close out the game in a 44-38 loss to the Velva Aggies.
Both teams traded baskets in the opening quarter and the score was tied at 13 by quarters end. A couple of Chris Peterson threes helped put the Aggies up by eight at halftime.
The Braves, thanks to aggressive play, caught up with the Aggies several times in the second half. However, the Braves were unable to take the lead away from the Aggies, who sunk just enough shots to earn a six-point win.
“We had plenty of opportunities and we talked about this coming into the district tournament, that it’s not about how hard we work, because all teams are going to work hard now,” Braves head coach Nate Simpson said. “It’s about execution, and the team that executes will move on and we just flat out had our chances, but didn’t execute.”
Several of those chances came from the free throw line.
“We ended up 5-of-15 free throws, and for us to make it to the free throw line 15 times is actually pretty good, but we just had to knock them down,” Simpson said. “But in the end that was the difference in the game.”
Velva’s Michael Thingstad scored a game-high 16 points.
The Braves were led by senior Trevor Wettlaufer’s 13 points. St. Claire added 10 and Pollman finished with seven points in the loss.
The game was an example of the entire season for the Braves, who were competitive in a lot of games, but could never finish the win out.
“Throughout the year I don’t know if we were unlucky, but we could never find five guys who just clicked for an extended period of time,” Simpson said. “At different periods and different times we would, and we were a nice team when that happened, but it was a lack of experience and at the varsity game we never got caught up to how mentally strong you need to be to compete at that level.”
Simpson felt like a lack of consistency is what held the Braves back, especially at the end of games.
“We had a lot of kids that had a lot of chances to play, and it was just finding that consistency, and finding those kids that could click,” Simpson said. “At times it was nice when we did, but it was too inconsistent to really get anything done.”
Bottineau will lose seniors Trevor Wettlaufer, Taylor Parisien, Ian Snodgrass, Ty Domben, Joey Hackman and Logan Pewe.
Returning next year will be several players with varsity experience from this season: Garrett Pollman, Jake Carroll, Philip Neubauer, Christian St. Claire and Parker Engelhard.
“I’ll have a lot of kids back with a lot of experience next year, so we won’t be able to use that as an excuse that’s for sure,” Simpson said. “We can come into the season a little different, and a little more will be known about some kids, and as with anything most good teams aren’t made during the season, they are during the off season.”
Simpson believes the kids will need to be sure to put in work in the off season if they want to be successful next year.
“The kids know that they have to put the work in during the off season in order to be successful come next December,” Simpson said. “There is potential there, it’s just what the kids want to do with it from here until then.”
Bottineau finished with a 4-17 overall record.
Pollman named All-District
Bottineau junior guard Garrett Pollman was the lone Braves player named to the All-District team for District 11.
Pollman, who started every game for the Braves this season led Bottineau in scoring throughout the season.