Western Sweeps SBL at Home Friday

Hull Iowa — Western Christian returned from the holidays with a home sweep of Sergeant Bluff Luton Friday. Both Wolfpack teams ran their winning streaks to five in the process. The girls team opened the night with a 68-54 win with the boys posting a 68-64 double overtime win.

In the girls game Western led at all the breaks taking a 24-13 first quarter lead and were up by ten at halftime 34-24. At the end of the third quarter the Wolfpack maintained a ten point lead at 49-39 before going on to win 68-54.

Madison Vis led the Wolfpack with 14 points off the bench. Olivia Granstra hit for 13 with Abby Postma dropping in 11. Sergeant Bluff Luton got a game high 15 from Kenzie Foley and a dozen from Emma Salker.

With the win Western improves to 6-2 on the year. The Warriors are 2-5.

The boys contest took double overtime to decide and there were a number of key players on both sides. For Western Ty Van Essen went 1-of-2 at the line with time running out in regulation to tie the score at 54-54 after Majok Majouk had given the Warriors a 1 point lead just moments before.

In he first overtime Van Essen scored all four of the Wolfpack points with a field goal and a pair of free throws. 2-point field goals from Majouk and Jacob Imming accounted for the Warriors scoring. With the game tied at 58-58 it was on to a second overtime.

In the second overtime Ty Van Essen put one off the glass from close range to give Western a 2 point lead with time running out. Eli Van Essen went to the line with 3.9 seconds left and sealed the win hitting a pair of free throws to make it a two possession game. As the buzzer sounded Western had their 5th win of the season 68-64 in double overtime. Dawson Feenstra went 2-of-2 at the line in the second overtime and Cole Zevenbergen hit a pair of field goals for 4 points in the second overtime. Jacob Imming went 1-of-2 at the line and Daniel Wright hit a pair of free throws and knocked down a three for the Warriors scoring in the second overtime.

Western hit a trio of 3-pointers as they took a 13-11 first quarter lead. SBL used their height advantage to work the inside game a take a 26-20 first half lead. At the end of the third quarter Western was back in front 34-33. With Sergeant Bluff Luton 1 point better than Western the fourth quarter the stage was set for the double overtime finish.

With the win Western improves to 5-2 on the year while the Warriors are even at 3-3. Next up for the Wolfpack will be a home non-conference double header on Tuesday as they play host to Harrisburg South Dakota. We’ll continue season long coverage of Wolfpack basketball on KIWA FM 105.3 with pregame for the girls at 6:05 and opening tip at 6:15 with the boys game to follow.

Comments from Head Coach Derek Keizer

Unbelievable high school game tonight. The game had a different flow to it all night. It started as a very slow, grind-out type of game.

Really proud of our guys tonight. We executed very well defensively and stuck to the game plan all night. We wanted to make every shot a contested one for Daniel Wright. He’s such a talented player, we knew we would have to make him shoot in traffic over contested hands and I thought we did that for the most part.

We gave up 6 O-Boards in the first half and with their size, that leads to easy baskets. We rebounded extremely well in the second half and both overtimes. To out-rebound a team with that type of size means we were pretty tough on that end of the floor.

Wyatt Gulker was outstanding tonight. He played 40 minutes and was a floor general all night.

Cole Zevenbergen was huge in both overtimes. He played great defense on Wright and then was able to get some buckets on the offensive end.

Both teams had opportunities in both overtimes. We would make a run and they would answer. Very glad we could get a stop at the end and cap it off with two made Free Throws to seal the deal.