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February 18, 2000
Greyhounds outlast SESMBy JIM BASTIAN Journal Sports Writer SLEEPY EYE -- When Sleepy Eye St. Mary's Adam Fischer hit a jump shot sixty seconds into the third quarter to cut the New Ulm Cathedral lead to 22-21, most people assumed that the game would go right down to the wire. They were wrong. Fischer's basket was the first of only two field goals by the Knights in the third quarter as Knight shooting went cold, falling to the Greyhounds 55-44 Thursday night in Tomahawk Conference basketball. Jesse Ahlbrecht led Cathedral with 15 points, with Will Moeller and Dave Groebner each tossing in 10. Randy Braun paced the Knights with 10 points. The teams went into the locker room knotted at 19-19, with both teams fairly even in shooting -- the Hounds hit on eight of 20 from the field and the Knights connecting on seven of 21 from the floor. It was a first half that saw the teams combine for 19 turnovers (10 for Cathedral, nine for SESM); Cathedral hit on only three of 10 free throws while St. Mary's was successful on two of four charity tosses. A 6-4 Cathedral lead after one quarter turned into a 19-19 tie when the Hounds' Groebner hit a basket with 40 second remaining in the first half. And then the second half started. "I thought that we had some good shots in that third quarter," said Knights' head coach Peter Roufs. "They hit their shots and we did not; we needed a defensive stop and an offensive putback and we did not get that, and the game kind of got away from us." After Fischer's basket pulled the Knights to within one point on Parent's Night, the Hounds ran off eight straight points for a 30-21 lead before Andy Konz hit two free throws with 4:04 left to end the bleeding. "We just started getting the ball inside," commented Cathedral head coach Dan Wolfe about that third quarter, in which the Hounds outscored St. Mary's 20-6. "We got some offensive boards and were more aggressive in that second half." Groebner's basket and an Ahlbrecht basket on a pass from Mike Hall followed before Konz hit on a baseline drive to cut the lead to 34-25. But as Roufs said, they did not get that defensive stand that they needed to swing momentum as Cathedral followed with a Groebner free throw and baskets by James Hillesheim and Hall for a 39-25 lead going into the final eight minutes. "We had more defensive intensity (in the second half)," Wolfe said. "We got a little bit of a run going in that third quarter; we got that big lead and seemed comfortable." Cathedral's defense, which challenged just about every shot that the Knights put up, held SESM to 4-for-23 from the field until Konz hit three straight shots for St. Mary's with just under two minutes left in the game. By then, the Hounds had the game salted away with a 50-37 lead. "They had Ahlbrecht and some other players step it up (in that third quarter) and they spread the ball all around, made their shots and their run," said Roufs. "Give them credit; they came out with a lot of fire (in the second half). We got worn down, they are a physical team." The Greyhound B-squad won 40-35. Brandon Goblirsch led CHS with 12, with Ben Marti hitting nine for the Knights. Cathedral's C-squad fell in overtime to St. Mary's, 37-33. Tom Hazuka led the way for the Greyhounds with 13 points and Danny Schreiber also chipped in with five. CATHEDRAL 6 13 20 16--55 SESM 4 15 6 19--44 CATHEDRAL (55): Ahlbrecht 15, Moeller 10, Groebner 10, Hall 6, Schugel 5, Neubauer 4, Hillesheim 4, Osborne 1. SESM (44): Braun 10, Ludewig 8, Konz 8, Meyer 6, Fischer 5, Pelzl 4, Tyler 2, Novotny 1.
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