Wega-Fremont picks up first win
By Greg Seubert
After opening the season with three nonconference losses on the road, the Weyauwega-Fremont boys’ basketball team looked forward to its home opener, a Central Wisconsin 8 Conference matchup Dec. 9 with Iola-Scandinavia.
The Indians made the most of the opportunity with an 82-77 win over the Thunderbirds.
W-F had an 18-point lead with less than nine minutes to go in the game, but had to hold on after the Thunderbirds cut the deficit to three points in the game’s final minute.
Hitting 29 of 40 free throws helped the Indians, coach Kyle Loughrin said.
“There was a point where we missed five in a row that were huge free throws,” he said. “That was the part that killed us. Their press was good at the end, too. We couldn’t handle that, so I hope our free throws down the stretch and taking care of the ball gets a little better.”
W-F led by as many as seven points in the first half, but the T-Birds eventually took a seven-point lead of their own and led 38-37 at halftime.
Logan Bosquez’s three pointer on the Indians’ first possession of the second half gave W-F the lead for good. The Indians eventually took a 70-52 lead on a Jacob Hablewitz basket with 8:21 to go in the game, but the T-Birds went on a 20-6 run that trimmed the lead to 76-72 with 2:02 to go.
Charlie Stockwell’s three-pointer with 23 seconds remaining made it even closer at 80-77 and the T-Birds had a chance at a game-tying shot after the Indians turned the ball over with 17 seconds left on the clock.
The T-Birds missed a pair of threes and Bosquez added to the lead with a pair of free throws.
Hablewitz and Bosquez led the Indians with 28 and 24 points, respectively, while Chris Young also finished in double figures with 10.
“Jake actually had a cold night shooting,” Loughrin said. “He wasn’t shooting the ball very good and still ended up with 28 points. He hit the big ones when it mattered and Kolden (Baehman) did a great job coming off the bench, hitting some big shots and getting our momentum going.”
Bryce Huettner scored 16 of his team-high 19 points in the first half for the T-Birds, while Kenny Holz finished with 16, Carter Kurki had 12 and Stockwell chipped in with 10.
Holz came into the game averaging 24.5 points in each of the T-Birds’ first two games.
“First of all, he’s a great player and we knew that coming in,” Loughrin said. “Their team kind of goes as he goes. We knew if we shut him down, we had a pretty good chance here.
“We put our best defender, Logan, on him and he did a great job tonight,” he added. “Guarding a guy like that, it’s more than just one person. It takes a whole team to guard a kid like that and I think we did pretty good on him.”
W-F played at Shiocton Dec. 13 and will head to Manawa Tuesday, Dec. 20. The T-Birds hosted Bonduel Dec. 13 and will play Dec. 20 at Wittenberg-Birnamwood.
“Any win is great, but to be in conference is even better,” Loughrin said. “We started off on the right foot. No team in our conference is going to be easy and we know that. We just have to do our thing day in and day out and hopefully, we’ll come up with some W’s.”