Jacy Zollar sports@wolfrivermedia.com
Leader photo by Jacy Zollar Shawano Community High School junior Alex Mueller tries to pass during a 71-50 loss at West De Pere on Tuesday. Mueller scored nine points for the Hawks.
Shawano had five players contribute behind the arc but fell short to West De Pere 71-50 in a Bay Conference matchup on Tuesday at West De Pere.
The teams entered the game tied at 2-2 in the Conference, and West De Pere’s win pushes them to the No. 2 spot, while the Hawks drop to No. 5.
“I thought we came out a little tentative,” head coach David Ambrosius said. “(West De Pere’s) energy and execution level really jumped on us right from the start. We were never able to fully recover from that.”
West De Pere’s Kody Eisch clinched a steal and layup for the first points of the game at 16:30 to take the momentum for the Phantoms. The Hawks went into half trailing 27-18 after a jumper at the buzzer by Cole Nelson and took the first points of the second half from a putback by Kaden Richards, but the Phantoms took the next 17 points to secure a comfortable lead for the remainder of the game.
“I thought we picked it up offensively in the second half, but there were major gaps defensively through the whole game that we just didn’t fix, we gave up too many easy shots.”
West De Pere’s (6-7, 3-2 Bay) win at home comes after playing five games on the road with a four-game losing streak.
“We haven’t been at home in so long that these guys were just fired up,” Phantoms coach Andy Werner said, “We really wanted to get a win under our belt coming off four games losing, and we knew we were going to have to get the momentum from the start if we wanted to do that against a tough team like Shawano.
“We knew this was going to be a tough match, but I think the motivation we had to win, especially at home, is what got us there.”
West De Pere was led by Jake Karchinski, who scored a game-high 23 points.
Richards led the Hawks with 18 points, followed by Cole Nelson with 12 and Alex Mueller with nine. Richards, Nelson and Mueller each clinched three 3-pointers. Atty Wagner and Nick Grignon also contributed one apiece to contribute to 33 total points behind the arc.
“We have a lot of guys that can put the ball in from deep,” Ambrosius said. “But we need to get more points from inside the paint, so it’s great having guys that can shoot threes, but we need to find more of a balance between the two.”
The Hawks (5-6, 2-3 Bay) look to improve before another tough conference matchup against New London (7-5, 3-2 Bay) on Friday.
“We’ll get together as coaches and come up with a new game plan for New London,” Ambrosius said. “We need to start putting the big kids in positions where they can start having some success.”
West De Pere (71)
Jake Karchinski 5-6 23; Garrett Kempen 0-0 8; Dylan Govin 0-0 5; Jovan Webb 1-1 8; Kody Eisch 0-0 9; Riley Mueller 1-2 1; Tristan Jindra 0-0 6; Drew Kocken 0-0 8; Kerry Kodanko 1-2 1; Billy Wyatt 0-0 2.
Shawano (50)
Kaden Richards 5-6 18; Nick Sherman 1-2 1; Cole Nelson 1-1 12; Atty Wagner 0-0 3; Alex Mueller 0-0 9; Nick Grignon 0-0 3; Jacob Lacy 0-2 2; Dakota Maltbey 0-0 2.
West De Pere 27 44 — 71
Shawano 18 32 — 50