Defensive minded Blossoms overcome Hungerholt’s big night to win
Published 9:37 pm Friday, December 27, 2024
LeRoy-Ostrander’s Reid Hungerholt attacks against the defense of Blooming Prairie’s Cooper Cooke (14) in Grand Meadow Friday. Rocky Hulne/sports@austindailyherald.com
Blooming Prairie’s Jacob Pauly muscles a rebound away from LeRoy-Ostrander’s Tyson Stevens in BP Friday. Rocky Hulne/sports@austindailyherald.com
Blooming Prairie’s Brady Kittelson rises above the LeRoy-Ostrander defense for an alley-opp dunk in Grand Meadow Friday. Rocky Hulne/sports@austindailyherald.com
Bradley Boyd handles the ball for Blooming Prairie. Rocky Hulne/sports@austindailyherald.com
Blooming Prairie’s Cooper Cooke converts a lay-up. Rocky Hulne/sports@austindailyherald.com
Carter Sweeney handles the ball for the Cardinals. Rocky Hulne/sports@austindailyherald.com
LeRoy-Ostrander’s Camden Hungerholt finishes a lay-up against the defense of Blooming Prairie’s Carter Bishop. Rocky Hulne/sports@austindailyherald.com
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GRAND MEADOW – The Awesome Blossom boys basketball team is in the midst of an identity shift to a defensive minded team and it showed signs of moving in that direction in a 61-48 win over LeRoy-Ostrander in Grand Meadow Friday.
LO senior Camden Hungerholt poured in 35 points – including four points in 10 seconds to bring his team within 55-48 with 59.3 seconds left – but no other Cardinal scored more than five points.
“It starts on defense and we’re not going to score 80 or 90 points with this team like we did last year,” BP head coach Cam Rutledge said. “Brady Kittelson can match up with just about anyone and Cam still did his thing. He still was Cam Hungerholt tonight, but fortunately we did a good job on everybody else and slowed them down.”
The Awesome Blossoms (3-2 overall) started the game on a 7-1 run and they never relinquished that lead. BP seized momentum at the end of the first half when junior Bradley Boyd grabbed an offensive rebound and scored to beat the buzzer and make it 31-18.
Kittelson and Gabe Staloch each scored 19, and Boyd was active throughout the night as he finished with seven points, seven rebounds, four assists and two steals.
“That (put-back) came as a surprise that it came to me. It went from Cooper (Cooke’s) hands to mine, I shot it and somehow it went in,” Boyd said. “Nornally, I try to look inside and get Brady the ball, because he’s our main scorer. I try to pass it to the open guy and get assists.”
Cooke finished with five points and 16 rebounds and Jacob Pauly chipped in nine points and seven rebounds.
“Cooper, Jake and Bradley are all super scrappy and they get boards for us,” Rutledge said. “That’s their role and what we need them to do. Bradley is a capable shooter and it just wasn’t falling tonight, but he still made a difference.”
Pauly helped anchor the BP defense, which was able to make LO one dimensional for much of the night.
“I just had to stay on help side D and not back down on off ball screens,” Pauly said. “We need to work on our defense more this year. We’ve been working harder in practice and focusing more on defense than offense.”
LO 18 30 – 48
BP 31 30 – 61
BP scoring: Brady Kittelson, 19; Jacob Pauly, 9; Gabe Staloch, 19; Bradley Boyd, 7; Cooper Cooke, 5; Carter Bishop, 5
LO scoring: Camden Hungerholt, 35; Carter Sweeney, 5; Reid Hungerholt, 5; Tyson Stevens, 3
