by Scott DCamp
Sports Editor
Ten games into the 2018-19 boys basketball season, Thief River Falls has proven that it can play with most of the teams on its schedule. Getting wins, however, has been a different story.
The culprit, according to Head Coach Jon Hams is one or two long scoring droughts each game, that effectively take the Prowlers out of the game.
That was the case Thursday night when Thief River Falls hosted Norman County East/Ulen-Hitterdahl. The Titans had tremendous size for a single A team. The Prowlers stayed within four points of the Titans for most of the first half, but a late 15-1 run gave the Titans a 39-25 lead going into the locker room.
“They have some very good size, they are one of the top teams in 6A, and they matched up really, really well with us on size,” Hams said. “Their big inside presence, we handled him well. That next guy, who played on the wing, we didn’t have a good answer for him.”
The Prowlers played pretty even with the Titans in the second half, but couldn’t quite get back into the game.
“We played well at certain times of the game,” Hams said. “There was one point when we were down 12 points. We got five stops in a row. The problem was we never scored. We could have cut that lead in half just shooting our normal average.”
NCE/Ulen-Hitterdahl pulled away for the 69-51 win.
On Friday, the Prowlers were back in action against Breckinridge. The Cowboys raced to a 46-22 halftime advantage and cruised to an 82-52 win.
Brevyn Lingen scored 17 points in the loss, but no other Prowlers reached double figures. Myles Johnson and Gunner Zutz each scored nine points.
Noah Christianson 20, Caden McGough 12, and Jacob Marsh, 11, were all in double figures for the Cowboys.
Scoring 1 2 T
NCE/Ulen-Hitterdahl…..39 30 69
Thief River Falls…………. 25 26 51
NCE/UH – Noah Klemetson 6, Ross Jirk 2, Tate Maasse 5, Sunny Resnick 3, Kale McCollum 2, Morgan Stueness 12, Broden Lien 25, Steffan Sather 14.
TRF – Myles Johnson 2, Gunner Zutz 10, Brevyn Lingen 9, Storm Manning 23, Luke Perkovich 7.
Scoring 1 2 T
Breckenridge………………..46 36 82
Thief River Falls……………22 30 52
Breckenridge – Noah Christianson 20, Caden McGough 12, Cooper Yaggie 6, Jacob Marsh 11, Sebastian Anderson 3, Hunter Feigum 5, Sam Bakken 6, Junter Perez 2, Tyson Pichowski 1, Justin Marsh 8, Jonah Christianson 4, Charlie Baldlingh 4, Anthoney Conzemius 1, Gavin Johnson 3.
TRF – Myles Johnson 9, Gunner Zutz 9, Brevyn Lingen 17, Gavin Hoglo 2, Zach Praska 2, Storm Manning 6, Gunnar Aune 2, Luke Perkovich 5.