By Mike Drooger

The Edgerton Flying Dutchmen boys’ basketball team had just a few hours to come down from their high of beating Madelia with a buzzer beater when the Patriots of Hills-Beaver Creek came to town on March 8.

The EHS players were forced to learn a hard lesson—and one that they already knew—when they lost by a single point to H-BC 43-42. What they relearned was the importance of taking care of the ball and the importance of free throws.

Edgerton had just 16 turnovers, which isn’t bad, but miscues 14, 15, and 16 came at crucial times down the stretch in their half-court offense. Actually, turnover number 16 came when EHS was trying to inbound the ball under their own basket with the score 42-39 in favor of the Patriots. H-BC had just done EHS a courtesy by throwing the ball out of bounds on their inbound attempt, but EHS returned the favor.

Much to Edgerton’s credit, they did get the ball right back after a steal by Jacob Fischer, but they missed a trey. Then they got another steal (Keegan Fey) but missed another shot from deep. With 6.4 seconds left, the Patriots made one-out-of-two free throws for an insurmountable four-point lead. Fey did drain a long trey with .5 seconds left to make the final margin one point.

The scoring for both teams was difficult to come by the entire game. H-BC nailed a trey on its first shot attempt of the game, but they stayed on three until nearly seven minutes later. The Dutchmen, meanwhile, had great ball movement and they were hitting their shots. Well, two guys were hitting their shots. Fey was 4-for-8 from the field (all treys) in the first 18 minutes and Jacob Ockenga was 4-for-5 (all 2s) and the Dutchmen held a 21-18 lead at the break.