After opening Central Wisconsin 8 Conference play with a loss to Shiocton, the Weyauwega-Fremont boys’ basketball team rebounded with a convincing win over Manawa.
The 3-1 Indians handed the Wolves a 69-28 defeat Dec. 13, three days after dropping a 54-41 decision to Shiocton.
W-F 69, Manawa 28
The Indians outscored the Wolves 19-10 in the first quarter and 15-9 over the next eight minutes to take a 34-19 halftime lead.
W-F put the game away with a 22-3 advantage in the third quarter before outscoring the visitors 13-6 in the fourth.
Lincoln Van Cuick and Dan Prillwitz led the Indians with 18 and 15 points, respectively, while Blake Hudziak also finished in double figures with 11.
Shane Manthey and Matthew Radloff scored seven points each to lead Manawa.
Shiocton 54, W-F 41
Freshman Nathan Schmidt scored 15 of his 17 points in the first half to help lead the Chiefs over the Indians.
The Chiefs scored the game’s first 12 points and the Indians never got any closer than 10 points the rest of the way. Shiocton led 16-2 after one quarter, 29-13 at halftime and 40-24 after three quarters.
“We outscored them 39-38 in the final three quarters,” coach Andy Schroeder said. “You can’t start in the hole like that against a good Shiocton team. We had some good looks and some good post moves, but the guys couldn’t finish. I’m not expecting a game like this too often, so maybe it’s good to get it out of our system.”
Aaron Schroeder led the Indians with 12 points, while Prillwitz added a dozen. Schmidt led all scorers with 17 points.
The Indians missed 11 of 20 free throws, while Shiocton hit nine of 11.
“We’re going to go back and work on some of these fundamentals,” Schroeder said. “I told them we’re going to shoot 100 free throws tomorrow. If they don’t make 66 percent, we’re going to shoot 100 more the next day. We’re going to work on finishing around the basket. I don’t doubt that they’re working hard. It’s a fun team to coach because they are such hard workers.
“Basketball’s about fundamentals,” he added. “Free throws, we didn’t do those. We didn’t make our layups and putbacks. They got a couple of transition baskets and usually teams don’t do that on us.”
The Indians began a stretch of four straight road games Dec. 17 at Amherst. W-F will also travel to Wittenberg-Birnamwood Friday, Dec. 20, for a 7:30 p.m. CWC-8 matchup with the Chargers before playing a pair of games Friday and Saturday, Dec. 27-28, at the Auburndale Invitational. The next home game is a nonconference game at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 2, against Laconia.