Sports

Braves drop two more, fall to 3-12

By Tyler Ohmann

01/28/2014

Two more losses, including one to a District 11 opponent has put the Bottineau Braves on edge.

First the Braves fell 69-53 to Towner-Granville-Upham (TGU) last Thursday, their fourth straight district loss.

Then the Braves botched an effort to bounce back by falling 81-50 to Bishop Ryan on Saturday night in Bottineau.

In the game against the Titans in Towner, after hanging with TGU for one quarter, the game slipped out of hand and the Titans went up by 12 at the break.

It did not get any better from there and the Titans cruised to a 16-point win.

“We took care of the ball fairly well, but it was defensive let down,” said Braves head coach Nate Simpson about the game. “We got caught standing around staring too much.”

“They entered the ball in the high post and we got caught staring and they had cutters open for layups all day,” Simpson added.

Colter Thorp had 18 points and Eli Luna added 15 for the Titans.
For Bottineau senior Garret Pollman had 17 points, Parker Engelhard had 14 points and Philip Neubauer added 10 points.

Looking to shake off that game, the Braves returned home on Saturday to play the second half of a girls/boys doubleheader against the Bishop Ryan Lions.

After watching the girls fall, the Braves should have had plenty of incentive to go out and do their best. However, the Lions were feisty from the get go, and led 20-9 after one quarter.

By halftime the lead was 18 and it only go worse from there, ending in a 31-point win.

“The seniors have to step up and lead us,” Simpson said. “We had no leadership in the first half, and it snowballed out of control.”

“We didn’t get anybody to settle us down on the court, and that’s what the experienced players need to do, and it didn’t happen tonight, our seniors let us down,” Simpson added.

Jared Will, Jake Magnuson and Brody Bosch were all in double figures for the Lions.

Pollman had 11 and junior Ethan Kerslake had 10 points for the Braves. Senior Jacob Halvorson provided a small spark in the second half by hitting three shots from beyond the arc.

Simpson believes that defense is certainly a big part of the recent lack of success from Bottineau, but that isn’t the whole story.

“Defense has to be (a priority) because we gave up 69 points to Towner who is usually playing in the 40s and 50s, and then 81 points tonight,” Simpson said. “Some of that is defense, and some of that is a lack of offensive system going, and that leads to easy transition buckets for the other team.”

One thing is for sure for the Braves (3-12, 0-4) the clock is ticking on being able to figure it out.

“It’s back to the drawing board for us, but we’re running out of time here,” Simpson said. “We have four games left, three of them being district games, we need to step up here and start playing better basketball or our season is going to be over real quick.”

The Braves travel to No. 2 Rugby tonight and host Velva at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday night.

One positive for the Braves is that they will be the host of the District 11 Tournament that begins on Feb. 13.