Hawks slow down to top Tritons

After the press sped the Shawano boys basketball team up in the first half, coach Dave Ambrosius urged his team to slow things down in the second half.

The Hawks did just that, and with some strong defensive play of its own, Shawano outscored Green Bay Notre Dame 39-25 in the second half to claim a 55-49 win at the Sun Drop Shootout at the Kress Center in Green Bay on Friday afternoon.

“The biggest thing we told them was just to slow down. We were trying to play too fast,” Ambrosius said of his team’s first half. “We knew where we had some advantages and we were just trying to force it in there right away instead of being patient and playing our style of basketball… .”

Trailing 24-16 at halftime, the Hawks came flying out of the half, scoring the first eight points to tie it up. The teams then battled back-and-forth before senior Nick Grignon converted a field goal and junior Cody Nahwahquaw knocked down two free throws to give Shawano a 35-31 lead.

The Hawks (4-4) never relinquished the lead again, but the Tritons (1-7) did cut their deficit to one with about 3 minutes, 15 seconds to play.

Shawano junior Nick Sherman delivered a clutch 3-pointer to put the team back up four before Notre Dame answered with a 3-ball with 2:15 to play.

Shawano did not make a field goal the rest of the way, but converted 8-of-10 attempts from the free throw line to seal up the victory. As a team, the Hawks made 22 of their 34 free throw attempts.

Sherman made 7-of-8 free throws down the stretch, capping a 9-for-10 effort at the charity stripe and 17-point game.

Weisnicht finished with a team-high 23 points, 15 of which came in the second half when he asserted himself in the post.

The win also helped stop the Hawks’ two-game losing streak.

“It was a big thing to keep up our defense and not let them get ahead by too much,” Weisnicht said. “It helped us stay in the game, even though our offense wasn’t really going for us.”

“This win is really big. It proves how tough we are.” Sherman said. “And even though our shots aren’t going down, we’re playing hard defensively and running through our stuff and making the plays we need to to stay in the game, keep it close and then finally at the end we gave ourselves just enough space.”

Shawano hopes to use the victory as a springboard into the second half of the season. The Hawks will host West De Pere next Thursday in Bay Conference action.

Shawano (55)

Nick Sherman 9-10 17, Cody Nahwahquaw 4-4 6, Nick Grignon 1-5 5, Brayden Dickelman 2-4 4, Carter Weisnicht 6-11 23.

Notre Dame (49)

Marcus Hornacek 0-3 3, Jack Schumer 1-2 15, Josh Cribben 5-7 15, Ben Laskowski 0-2 0, Cooper Bukowski 0-0 2, Sam Schmid 0-0 14,

Shawano 16 39 — 55

Notre Dame 24 25 — 49