St. Mary's downs MVL

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

SLEEPY EYE -- A 16-0 first quarter run by Sleepy Eye St. Mary's was too much for Minnesota Valley Lutheran to overcome as the Knights won their 15th straight game with a 69-61 win over the Chargers Thursday night in Tomahawk Conference boys basketball.

Matt Gangelhoff paced four Knights (11-0; 15-1) in double-figures with a game-high 21 points. Joey Wahl tossed in 16, Kyle Ludewig 15 and Matt Mathiowetz 12

Dustin Lendt led the Chargers (8-3; 12-4) with 19 points. Andrew Beilke contributed 16.

"This was an excellent game for us.," Knights coach Peter Roufs said. "We knew that MVL was going to come in here ready to play and I told our kids that we needed to be up to the challenge."

"We gave them to many second shots and they converted on them," MVL coach Craig Morgan said. "We threw the ball away at inopportune times where we did not have to risk it. We have to learn from those mistakes."

The Chargers, who host Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton Saturday night in boys and girls varsity games beginning at 6 p.m., took a 7-2 lead thanks to an Andrew Bielke trey with two minutes gone in the game.

But the Knights' Matt Gangelhoff hit a jumper that sparked that 16-0 run by St. Mary's and turned a five point deficit into am 18-7 Sleepy Eye lead with 2:42 left in the quarter.

Gangelhoff followed that hoop with a 3-pointer, the first of four treys in the game for the 6-foot 1 junior. Raul Martinez, Ludewig, and Jake Bohnen all contributed baskets in the run.

"That run was huge for us," Roufs said. "We wanted to get on them early -- we did not want to play catch-up ball with them. We had to do that a little bit the last time we played them and that takes a lot of energy. We wanted to get off to a good start."

Morgan agreed that the run was the difference in the game.

"It was a deficit that we kept on trying to come back from," he said. "It was really hard to try and erase."

Two free throws from Dustin Lange finally stopped the Knight run as St. Mary's countered those two free throws with baskets by Ludewig on a turnaround jumper and a Bohnen jumper for a 22-9 lead after the first quarter.

St. Mary's would keep that lead at double figures through the second quarter before two Beilke free throws coupled with a Nass hoop off a St. Mary's turnover cut the lead to 36-28 with one minute left in the half.

The Knights would expand their 41-28 halftime lead to 45-28 on baskets from Joey Wahl and Ludewig. Down by a 48-32 margin, the Chargers outscored St. Mary's 14-2 to pull to 50-46 with 2:04 left in the third quarter. Leading the charge was Dustin Lendt who netted nine points including a three-point play that cut the lead to four points.

"We went to our zone and we wanted to get the ball inside to Mark (Thiesfeldt) and then kick the ball out and then get some penetration from Beilke," Morgan said.

But Gangelhoff hit back-to-back treys and followed that by hitting a jumper from thr wing to lift St. Mary's back into a double-digit lead at 58-48 after three quarters.

"They were playing a 2-3 zone and we kind of stalled on it, we did not have good ball movement," Roufs said. "We had to much passing on the top - we needed to get the ball on the side. Matt was open for the three's and he hit them."

'He [Gangelhoff] made the shots at the wrong time of the quarter for us," Morgan said. "They converted at the end of the quarter."

But the Chargers were not done as they pulled to within 64-59 with 2:30 left before Mathiowetz hit two free throws and Martinez hit one for a 67-59 lead with 47 seconds left in the game.

"We had four players in double figures tonight and we have had that balanced scoring all season," Roufs said. "It was a great team effort tonight."

It was the 28th meeting between the two teams with MVL now holding an overall 24-4 advantage.

MVL won the "B" game 53-47. Sam Siemers led MVL with 12 points with David Nass adding 11 for the Chargers. Andrew Woitas and Andy Woitas led the Knights with 15 and 13 points respectively.

MVL 9-19-20-13=61

SESM 22-19-17-11=69

MVL (61): Lendt 19, Beilke 16, Thiesfeldt 9, Nass 9, Morgan 4, Lange 4.

SEMS (69): Gangelhoff 21, Wahl 16, Ludewig 15, Mathiowetz 12, Martinez 3, Bohnen 2.