LEWISTON – The Lyle/Pacelli basketball team showed they could play without Matt Row in the lineup.

Monday, December 04, 2000

LEWISTON – The Lyle/Pacelli basketball team showed they could play without Matt Row in the lineup. Saturday night they took third place in the first Lewiston-Altura basketball tournament with a highly convincing 58-32 win.

"Matt severely sprained his ankle at the beginning of Friday’s night game," L/P coach Gary Erlandson said. "He could be out for up to two weeks. We will miss him. Saturday everybody stepped forward though. Especially Andy Nelson, who got the start for us. He might have not scored any points but he played great defense and made a number of steals in the game."

Nelson did score two points and, of course it came off a steal.

In the second quarter, L/P showed signs that they could steal the game. Nelson and Andy Boisjolie could have been cited for grand theft when in the space of 15 seconds they made two steals that led to points.

"Coach Erlandson has emphasized that you can score a lot of points off your defense," senior captain Danny Greibrok said.

At the half, L/P was up 24-11. They scored the first nine points of the game and Philip Halbach was dominating under the basket. Halbach scored 12 points in the game, 10 in the first half.

"We took advantage of a mismatch," Erlandson said.

L/P then took off in the third quarter building up a lead as high as 30 points. Greibrok caught fire scoring 10 in the stanza including a three-pointer.

"We played a little harder at the start of the second half," Greibrok said. "We maybe were a little tight coming into the game without Matt playing. Our steals led to some easy baskets. I finally got the range on my three-point shot also."

Erlandson liberally substituted half-way through the period. Every one in uniform got to play, 11 of the 13 who played. Jordon Christenson and Brian Anderson were the two who didn’t get a score but they played hard while out on the floor.

"We got into a rhythm in the third quarter," Erlandson said. "We ran and established our offense. It was nice to get everybody out on the floor.

Greibrok ended up as the leading scorer with 15 points. Halbach scored a dozen. Jared Koopal scored a half dozen, Cory Ransom five, Boisjolie and Nate Gunderson four each, Jeff Austin, Brandon Johnson, and Mike Davis three, Nelson two, and Kyle Smith one.

L/P (1-1) hosts Spring Grove Friday night in Lyle.