Wildcats withstand Bowler rally

Scott Cerveny was deadly from 3-point range, and Christian Haffner scored 25 points Thursday to lead the Gresham Community High School boys basketball team to a 77-67 win over Central Wisconsin Conference-10 foe Bowler in Gresham.

Despite the win, Gresham coach Jeff Zobeck was not satisfied with his team’s play, saying they missed easy shots, gave up layups on the other end and committed too many fouls.

“I was disappointed in our defense,” Zobeck said. “We were flat-footed and not reacting. I was disappointed even when the game got to the point were we felt like we could win it no matter what.”

After trailing early, Gresham (15-5, 12-4 CWC-10) tied the game 12-12 in the first quarter on a Cerveny 3-pointer. On the next possession, Cerveny again sunk one from deep to put the Wildcats up 15-12.

Cerveny, a senior guard, hit five 3-pointers and scored 17 of his 21 points in the first half.

“I don’t know where we’d be if he hadn’t made those (3s),” Zobeck said. “It would have been nice to have made some of the easy ones.”

“He had five 3s in the first half, it felt like 15,” Bowler coach Ted Kietlinski said. “When a guy is hitting shots, you can’t leave a real good shooter with his feet set and open look — he’s going to knock those down. I credit him for knocking the shots down, but we did not do a real good job of finding him and knowing where he was on the floor.”

Gresham went on to build a 37-26 lead by halftime and was up 55-39 at the end of three. Bowler junior Trae Opper’s basket cut the lead to under 10, 70-61, with 1:07 left to play, but that’s where the Bowler (4-15, 2-13 CWC-10) rally stalled.

“We laid a bit of an egg there in the third where the lead kind of blew up to 18-19 for Gresham,” Kietlinski said. “At that point it’s literally now or never. The kids responded. We cut it to a manageable spot. With a couple of good possessions on each end of the court you can make that a really tight game. We were close to doing that, but it didn’t quite happen tonight.”

Haffner, a junior guard, was held to two points in the first half, but finished with 25, scoring 15 in the fourth quarter and going 4-for-4 down the stretch at the free-throw line.

James Kazik added 13 points and Neil Cerveny scored 11 for the Wildcats. Killian Eggert had 12 assists.

Cody Montez led Bowler with 20 points. Chase Nueske added 13 and Walker Miller had 11.

“(Bowler) played hard,” Zobeck said. “They’re really aggressive and really physical. They’ve improved, definitely, since the first time we played them.”

Bowler (67)

B. Miller 1 0-2 2, Montez 7 4-6 20, Kazik 3 3-4 9, Nueske 5 5-6 15, W. Miller 3 5-8 11, Cameron 1 0-0 2, Serrano 2 0-0 6, Opper 1 0-0 2

Gresham (77)

N. Cerveny 4 2-2 11, Haffner 9 4-4 25, Kazik 6 1-1 13, S. Cerveny 8 0-1 21, Eggert 1 1-3 3, Fischer 2 0-0 4

Bowler 16 10 13 28 — 67

Gresham 17 20 18 22 — 77