No Turning it on and off at Will

The Lumberjack men’s basketball team traveled 108 miles to the east to faceoff with Division I rival, Lake Region State on Wednesday evening. It was their sophomore day. We had hoped to show them the same thing that we were shown on our sophomore day when NDSCS visited however it was not to be. Another slow start, especially defensively plagued the Jacks in the 103-94 loss.

"We have to find a way to come out from the tip and have the defensive intensity that got us here, we have to learn you can't just turn it on and off during a game."

Once again we did not come out with our defensive intensity, as we fell behind by as much as 12 early on in the first half.  We would find ways to cut the lead to single digits a few times, however the Royals would always respond seeing the lead swell to 15 by the halftime buzzer. In the first half LRSC shot a sizzling 55% from the field, and 5-10 from three. On the flip side we struggled hitting only 34% and 2-9 from three. We were also only 10-18 (56%) from the line.

The second half started much like the first half as Lake Region saw the lead jump to 19 in the first two minutes with two scores while we could not finish on two excellent looks. However this is where things started to pick up. Our half-court defense looked energized and we started to get turnovers. This was something that was great to see. We would proceed to go on a 16-4 run over about four minutes to cut the lead to seven.

Again the Royals would respond pushing the lead to 16 about as fast as we had cut it. From this point we would go back and forth seeing the lead stay around the 10 point mark for most the second half. In the end we just didn’t have enough time to come back. In the second half both teams shot well, we hit 56% while they hit 58%, we also had more attempts at a 45-24 clip.

Leading us was Brian Egejuru with 40 points on 15-23 shooting, while Philip Lee and Wesley Harrison added 19 and 12 to round out the double-digit scorers.

With the loss we finished 21-10 and 6-6 in Mon-Dak play. We now turn towards what I call season number two, the playoffs. These start on Wednesday, February 24 when we host United Tribes at 7 pm. The winner will move on to play Sunday the 28^th at 1 pm vs the winner of Gogebic (MI) vs Dakota County (MN).