HOWARD LAKE – Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted boys basketball coach James Carr learned a lot about his team Tuesday night. With a tough task ahead of them against a red-hot Eden Valley-Watkins team, Carr couldn’t help be proud of the way his kids battled back after a slow start.
HLWW trailed by as many as 17 points in the first half. Despite that, they had the lead late and a chance to win. It just wasn’t meant to be as a late turnover led to a 3-pointer from EV-W’s Luke Jansen which led the Eagles to a thrilling 64-63 victory on the road in a Central MN Conference battle.
“Just that I was proud of them,” Carr said about what his message for his team was. “They want it so bad. They played so hard. I’m just proud of the guys. I mean, they gave it everything they had. You can’t question their effort. It’s just tough to lose that way, but it’s fun to see the guys give everything they’ve got.”
The Lakers found themselves in a huge hole early on as the red-hot Eagles flexed their muscles early on. EV-W came into the matchup on a 12-game winning streak, and after 12 minutes of play, it looked like they were well on their way to win No. 13.
HLWW had other plans.
In a matter of seconds, Carlos Jones gave the Lakers a huge spark with back-to-back 3-pointers. That fire spread to his teammates as Carson Woolhouse and Bennett Paulson also knocked down 3-pointers, sparking a 15-2 run for HLWW to close the half and cut the deficit to just four points.
“They got a lot of heart,” Carr said. “They have a ton of heart. They showed that when we play to our level that we want to be at, we can play with any team. We just got to keep working.”
Offense has not been the strong suit for the Lakers in their past few games. HLWW failed to score more than 50 points in their past four games, but the offense got rolling late in the first half.
“It’s nice to kind of bust loose,” Carr said. “We’ve had a little bit of a shooting slump, but we’ve been able to hang our hat on our defense. Finally, we had some shots go in. It’s kind of contagious. Once one guy starts hitting a shot, the next guy starts hitting a shot. It was a lot of fun to see the guys out there making shots and having that intensity on the defensive end at the same time.”
After HLWW’s big run brought them within four, the Lakers didn’t lose the momentum over halftime. The Lakers came out swinging early in the second half. A 3-pointer from Noah Bush gave HLWW their first lead of the game since 3-2, and it only got better for them from there.
“It was huge,” Carr said about keeping the momentum going in the second half. “The guys were executing. We were attacking the ball hard. We were just doing all the little things to get buckets. It was simple things. It was bounce passes. It was finishing at the rim. It was moving without the ball. You name it, we did it. We put ourselves in a great spot.
With just over seven minutes to go, HLW had a seven-point lead over the Eagles and were looking to complete the comeback. EV-W wouldn’t go away easily as Jansen and Josh Streit carried the load for the Eagles down the stretch. Jansen and Streit combined to score 18 of the final 20 points for the Eagles, including Jansen’s game-winner with under 20 seconds to play.
“We can definitely build on it,” Carr said. “Every single game we’ve had this year against some really good basketball teams, we’ve been in. Every single one. We always talk about our goal at the end of the year is to be playing our best. When we’re showing what we can do against teams of this caliber, we’re headed in the right direction. We just have to keep working.”
EDEN VALLEY-WATKINS 64, HLWW 63
Scoring
EDEN VALLEY-WATKINS: Kobe Beattie 7, Luke Jansen 13, Carson Geislinger 5, Dylan Utecht 11, Josh Streit 16, Adam Stommes 12.
HLWW: Noah Bush 17, Carlos Jones 9, Carson Woolhouse 11, Bennett Paulson 10, Brandon Huston 2, Cody Dickhausen 14.