This story is sponsored by: High Street Salon, Spa & Travel
By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
STEVENS POINT – The Marshfield boys basketball team did all it could to stay within striking distance of second-ranked and defending Division 2 state champion La Crosse Central during its WIAA sectional final game on Saturday at Stevens Point Area Senior High.
The Tigers cut a 17-point deficit to 11 by halftime and tried to carry that momentum into the second half.
Unfortunately for Marshfield, it didn’t go well.
Marshfield missed its first nine shots of the second half and Central ripped off 17 straight points to effectively put away the Tigers and it cruised to a 72-52 victory to reach its third-straight state tournament.
Central (24-2) will take on Milwaukee Washington (23-3) in a Division 2 semifinal Friday afternoon at the 2018 WIAA State Boys Basketball Tournament at the Kohl Center in Madison.
The Raiders led 38-27 at halftime and scored on eight of their first 10 possessions of the second half to open up a 55-27 lead before a 3-pointer by Marshfield’s Seth Anderson ended the run.
Central’s all-state candidate Johnny Davis, a 6-foot-5 sophomore guard, scored eight of his game-high 25 points during the run to bury the Tigers.
“We weren’t ever going to give up,” Marshfield coach Scott Scheuer said. “It was going to be 36 minutes. We knew they were very, very talented. It was really hard to get easy baskets. That wasn’t a body shot (the run at the start of the second half), it was right to the forehead.”
The first half started the same way for Marshfield as the Red Raiders scored on their first eight possessions to open up an 18-5 lead.
Central’s inside game was too much for the undersized Tigers to handle as the Raiders had six offensive rebounds in the opening 6½ minutes to push its lead to 22-7 before Marshfield finally got its offense going a little bit.
Reed Miller scored all 10 of his points in a 3-minute stretch and Anthony Posteluk made a 3-pointer to bring the Tigers (14-12) to within nine at 37-26. A basket by Jordan Davis just before the buzzer put Central up 11 at halftime.
That was as close as the Tigers would get after Central’s big run to start the second half.
“We exerted a lot of energy in the first half to come back and at halftime I could see in them that they still believed, that it was doable,” Scheuer said. “They could have folded, but they kept battling.”
Anderson finished with 21 points to lead Marshfield, which shot just 33 percent (16 of 48) and was outrebounded 40-17. Anderson ends his stellar senior season with a new school single-season record of 577 points. He finishes his two-year varsity career with 808 points, which is ninth on the Tigers’ all-time scoring list.
Johnny Davis added eight rebounds and was 11 of 12 from the free throw line as the Raiders made 25 of 27 at the stripe. Jordan Davis added 13 points, Noah Parcher had 12 points and eight rebounds, and Terrance Thompson had 10 points and 11 rebounds for Central.
Marshfield was able to turn a late-season tailspin into a positive finish. The Tigers led the Wisconsin Valley Conference standings before a hard-fought three-point loss to Stevens Point on Jan. 23, the first of five losses in a three-week stretch.
Marshfield was able to regroup with a blowout win at Wausau West and reeled off four playoff victories to reach the sectional final.
“We prepared so hard to win a conference championship and we believed the noise,” Scheuer said. “That was a good thing to a point, but when the game (against Point) was over, that was the first time I saw the guys in the locker room not say anything.
“We dug in and we said we could still make some of our goals, and that was to make a run in the playoffs. We had those obstacles and to make a run with these five games, with all the preparation these guys put in…today Central was just better.”
Red Raiders 72, Tigers 52
Marshfield 27 25 – 52
La Crosse Central 38 34 – 72
MARSHFIELD (52): Issac Meverden 0-2 0-0 0, Brant Bohman 1-8 2-2 5, Tommy Olson 0-0 0-0 0, Reed Miller 2-7 4-4 10, Seth Anderson 8-19 2-2 21, Sam Hinson 0-1 0-0 0, Preston Wagner 0-0 2-2 2, Anthony Posteluk 2-5 0-0 5, John Reigel 1-3 2-2 4, Cody Korth 1-1 0-0 3, Joey Goettl 1-1 0-0 2, Grant Urban 0-1 0-0 0. FG: 16-48. FT: 12-12. 3-pointers: 8-26 (Anderson 3-6, Miller 2-6, Korth 1-1, Posteluk 1-4, Bohman 1-7, Meverden 0-1, Hinson 0-1). Rebounds: 17 (Miller 6). Turnovers: 11. Fouls: 22. Fouled out: Miller. Record: 14-12.
LA CROSSE CENTRAL (72): David Hayden 4-8 1-1 9, De’Andre Davis 0-0 0-0 0, Jacob Servais 0-0 1-2 1, Isaac Goldstein 0-0 2-2 2, Adian Roth 0-0 0-0 0, Cameron Sahagian-Crandall 0-0 0-0 0, Cole Koopman 0-0 0-0 0, Clayton Phillips 0-0 2-2 2, Terrance Thompson 3-7 4-4 10, Noah Parcher 4-7 4-4 12, Jordan Davis 5-10 2-2 13, Brecken Austin 0-1 0-0 0, Johnny Davis 7-14 11-12 25, Charlie Masewicz 0-0 0-0 0, Tyrese Schultz 0-0 0-0 0. FG: 23-47. FT: 25-27. 3-pointers: 1-6 (Jor. Davis 1-2, Parcher 0-1, Austin 0-1, Hayden 0-2). Rebounds: 40 (Thompson 11). Turnovers: 10. Fouls: 17. Fouled out: none. Record: 24-2.