By Coach Brian Walker

It had been 17 days since the Minnewaska boys’ C-squad had played a game, and with only a few practices, it showed as the team struggled to score points. The team traveled to West Central on Friday, and played a solid first half before fading in the second half as the Knights would go on to defeat the Lakers 42-23.  It was a tale of two halves as Minnewaska lead 14-11 at halftime.  Tristan O’Neil led the Lakers with 7 points, while Drew Bleick had 6, Caleb Kath had 5, Marshall Kopp and Riley Week both had 2 points and Conner Erickson had 1 point.  

The team hosted Pipestone, Saturday afternoon, and the young Lakers battled hard, but came up on the short end of a 51-28 score.  Pipestone made 5 of their 6 three pointers in the game in the first half to build a 31-15 lead.  In the second half, we had to pick up our defensive pressure, and we succeeded in turning the Arrows over early in the second half, but we were unable to finish our layups and turn them into points.  The Lakers hit just 5 of 20 shots (25%) in the second half.  We played better defensively in the second half allowing just 20 points, but we could only score 13.  Seven Lakers got into the scoring column in the game led by Tristan O’Neil and Conner Erickson with 8 points each.  Oliver VanderHagen added  4 points in the paint, Riley Week had 3, Ben Johnson and Caleb Kath both scored 2, and AJ Svec had 1 point.  The team continues to work hard and compete every game.  GO LAKERS!