Braves cruise past Maroons
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MENOMINEE -- The last time the Menominee boys basketball team played up in Gladstone, the team suffered its seconds biggest loss of the season in a 91-50 blowout that saw the No. 3 ranked Braves put up 65 points in the first half.
If Friday's 71-53 Great Northern Conference loss showed Maroons coach Sam Larson anything, it's that his team has made some improvements. There's just a lot more to figure out.
"I thought we definitely made some improvements from the last time we played them, and of course there's a lot more we have to work on before a week from Wednesday when we play them first game of districts," Larson said. "We're going to have to take the same step we did between the last game and today's."
Gladstone's Northern Michigan University signee and all-time leading scorer Reece Castor dominated the first quarter for the Braves, scoring 11 points and leading his team out to an 18-8 advantage after one. Gladstone scored 10 transition points in the first quarter while Menominee missed five shots from point-blank range that could have trimmed the deficit.
The Braves lead got up to as much as 19 points (29-10) early in the second quarter on back-to-back baseline jumpers on fastbreaks from Carson Shea that were assisted by Castor, who finished with nine helpers in the game.
"We talked about setting the tempo before the game started," Gladstone coach Dane Quigley said. "I thought we had a pretty poor effort against Negaunee the other night, real flat and not a lot of energy. The two words I put on the board tonight were effort and energy and I thought Carson Shea's play in the second quarter where he was hustling to the spots and getting after loose balls kind of exemplified what we wanted to do tonight. Once something like that happens and you have that energy it's contagious and I thought we did a good job of pushing the ball and setting the tempo."
Aidan Bellisle was fouled for Menominee and sank both free throws with 1 minute, 2 seconds remaining in the half to get the deficit down to 36-22 and the Maroons had the ball for the last shot and had a chance to get even closer, but a turnover led to another baseline jumper from Shea and Gladstone went into halftime with a 38-22 advantage.
Gladstone used a three-quarter court 1-3-1 zone to try and speed things up for the Maroons offensively, and while Menominee did a nice job of handling it and not turning it over too many times, the zone did its job and forced quick shots that led to more baskets in transition for the Braves.
"I didn't think we executed our game plan particularly well in the first half," Larson said. "We rushed a couple of shots that we could have gotten at any time in the clock. The point of that extended 1-3-1 is to speed you up and get you to take quick shots, and I think it accomplished its task. I don't think we did a bad job of breaking it, I think Keagan (Monroe) and Aidan did a nice job of breaking it, but we didn't always get into the sets that we wanted out of that.
"And then when we did rush our shots or turn it over and (Gladstone got the ball), our transition defense wasn't very good. We didn't stop the ball very well and credit Gladstone because they're a fast team, but we gotta get back on defense and start stopping the ball before it gets to the free throw line."
Menominee got within 12 coming out of the break a basket from Keaton Uecke, a pull up jumper by Monroe and then a three-point play by Uecke to get the score to 42-29. However Gladstone answered with back-to-back 3-pointers from Rane Castor and Shea to hike the lead back up to 48-31 with just over five minutes remaining in the third.
Brock Barrette sank a 3-pointer and swiped a pass for a layup to cut the deficit to 55-38, but Gladstone ended the quarter on a 7-0 run to head into the fourth with a 60-38 lead.
Gladstone's Rudy Peterson, who was seeing his first significant minutes of the season after coming back from an injury suffered in football season, knocked down his second 3-pointer of the game in the midst of a 7-0 Braves' run midway through the fourth quarter that saw Gladstone score its last bucket on a layup from James McKnight.
"It was nice to get Rudy Peterson back. He came off the bench in his first significant action all year and comes out and knocks down a couple of three's," Quigley said. "That's been the missing link for us this year. We haven't had someone be that consistent outside threat and we're not a real spectacular 3-point shooting team and we don't take a lot. So to have that added threat I hope that helps us come tournament time."
Reece Castor led all scorers for the game with 20 points and added three rebounds and nine assists. Shea was behind him with 17 points on 8-for-9 shooting from the field and Rane Castor finished with 10 points.
"It's a great experience for our young guys to play against (Reece) and be able to see what a college athlete looks like and plays like and they can see the speed and physicality you need to play at that level," Larson said. "I thought Brady Badker and Dante Sartorelli did a better job in the second half of trying to take him away. He's one of the best in the U.P. and you need to make it hard for him because he does so much of everything.
"Moving forward we'll watch some film on this one to get prepared for Kingsford on Monday and see if we can learn from some of our mistakes and see where we can get better."
Monroe led Menominee with 17 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and two blocks; Uecke added 11 points and Barrette had 10.
Menominee (3-13 overall, 0-7 GNC) hosts Kingsford on Monday while Gladstone (10-6, 3-3) travels to Westwood.
Gladstone 20 18 22 11 -- 71
Menominee 8 14 16 14 -- 53
Gladstone -- Reece Castor 20, Shea 17, Rane Castor 10, Peterson 6, Downey 5, Crow 5, Ballard 4, McKnight 2
Menominee -- Monroe 17, Uecke 11, Barrette 10, Bellisle 6, Sartorelli 5, Edington 4.