Clear Lake 72
North Polk 51
It was a game of revenge, of sorts, as North Polk entered the Lions Den in Clear Lake last Thursday night for a shot to stay alive in post-season basketball.
The Clear Lake Lions were defeated a year ago by the North Polk Comets in the Substate Final which kept the Lions out of the State Tournament.
This time, the Lions felt things would be different and the guys on the court wanted it.
“It feels really good after last year, I’ve been thinking about that game for a long time,” said Clear Lake senior Gavin Anderson. “I feel like all of us, and these seniors don’t want to go home so we play with all of our heart.”
Anderson scored 19 points on the night which helped elevate the Lions over the Comets in a 72-51 victory.
“Pushing the floor, point guards do a great job, great passes from all the guys, we do a great job pushing the ball and we just have a lot of fun.” said Anderson.
The game wasn’t an easy win, despite the score being a 21-point gap.
The first quarter saw the Lions lead the Comets 12-10 as the ball went back-and-forth.
The second quarter saw plenty of scoring from both teams, but it was the Comets that came out on top in a 21-20 quarter. The Lions lead at halftime by only one point.
The second-half saw adjustments by the Lions, most notably the press on defense, which put the Comets on their back foot. The Lions went on an 18-6 run in the third.
“We just started defending, we were trading baskets in the first half, we were giving up easy baskets, we’d lose our matchups,” said Clear Lake head coach Jeremey Ainley. “In the second-half we started guarding. We settled in, got in our matchups, we were sound, threw in the press a little bit to keep them off balance, but when you hold them to six points, offensively we knew we could score, defensively we had to start guarding something.”
Anderson added the team wasn’t ready to go home and knew they had to play defense if they were going to achieve that.
“We don’t want to go home at all and we knew we were losing the battle on the boards and knew we had to win that in the second-half,” said Anderson.
The Lions continued to score on offense in the fourth as the Comets found ways to get on the board as well, but a 22-14 score wasn’t enough for the Comets and the Lions moved on to the substate final on Monday night against Ballard.
Another high point for the Lions was freshman Jaxon McIntire coming off the bench and adding eight points to the board with three buckets from the field and two from the line.
“We’ve been short handed the last two-three weeks and those guys kept it together and raised their level of play. Leadership kept everything together and intact,” said coach Ainley. “[McIntire] can play and we’ve known that, we’ve brought him along and brought him up when the time was right and he’s performed at a high level and [we are] really proud of him. If you throw them to the fire too soon it’s hard and you can shock them. We have enough talent on this team we didn’t have to.”
The Lions saw two double digit scorers in Anderson with his team high 19 points and Cael Stephany with 16 on three buckets from three-point territory and seven free throws.
Dylan Litzel scored nine, Max Larson put up eight, Trevor Theobald had five, Titan Schmitt saw four, Sam Howland scored two and Gage Larson had one.
Ballard 62
Clear Lake 51
It was a heartbreak in Clarion Monday night as the Lions hosted the Ballard Bombers in the Substate Final. The game ended the Lion’s season with a 62-51 loss to Ballard.
It took nearly three minutes for either team to score, but it was Ballard that struck first. The Lions answered right back with Max Larson underneath.
It wasn’t long before Clear Lake took a comfortable eight-point lead with Titan Schmitt, Jaxon McIntire and Sam Howland getting involved at the bucket.
The first buzzer sounded with the Lions ahead 17-9, but the second quarter would spell disaster for Clear Lake.
Ballard, led by sophomore Jude Gibson, created turnovers and steals that kept the ball out of Lion shooters hands. Before long the Bombers erased the deficit and it was Clear Lake looking at a hole.
Scoring only two points in the second quarter, Clear Lake was down 26-19 at halftime.
After the short break, the Lions came back and put a dent in the gap, making it a two-point game, but once again, Ballard found a way to get to the bucket and disrupt the Lions. They came away with a 10-point lead at the end of three quarters.
The fourth saw the Lions continue to get within striking distance of turning the game around, but Ballard continued to answer any Lion offensive run with three’s extending the Bomber lead.
The buzzer sounded and the Lions missed out on a State Tournament appearance, finishing the season with a 22-2 record.
“We stopped attacking and doing what we did and got caught up in not getting a call here and there and we let that kind of get us out of what we wanted to do,” said coach Ainley. “We missed some bunnies, got some great looks and couldn’t finish. At the end of the day we’ve been fighting like hell the last three-four weeks and credit goes to our guys for not giving up.”
Coach Jeremey Ainley is proud of the team for stepping up in adversity after losing the top scoring players but the next-man-up mentality showed the grit the team has.
“I knew we’d fight and we wouldn’t go down easy,” said coach Ainely. “Unfortunately, a couple 50-50 balls we didn’t get and they capitalized on them.”
The Lions graduate six seniors in Gavin Anderson, Dylan Litzel, Cael Stephany, Taylor Plagge, Thomas Sonderman and Andrew Korenberg. Coach Ainley is proud of their leadership and what they have accomplished with the program over the last four years.
“They’ve meant a lot, more than anything their leadership. When we had major injuries, three-four weeks ago they led this team to stay undefeated in the conference and back to a substate final. We will have to replace some strong leadership,” said coach Ainley. “I love them, I thank them. In a season of adversity, they made me a better coach, better leader and a better person. I can’t thank them enough.”
On the future of the program, coach Ainley has no doubts they will be back as strong as ever.
“We’ll be fine. We will get back to what we do,” said Ainley. “It comes down to execution. This is the hardest game on the schedule to win and we just didn’t execute tonight.”
