By Skip Hunter –

After the thrilling come-from-behind victory in the girls’ game, Coach Jamie Pap hoped he would not have to pull a similar “rabbit” out of his hat. The Wolverines played the Eagles close in Edgerton, but the hopes were that SWC could win going away. However, that was not to be. MLA/C went ahead early and led by 8 at the half. They continued to give the Eagles fits in the second half, and the game went down to the final seconds. A Cody Van’t Hof free throw and a Carter Van Hulzen block sealed the win.

The Wolverines scored first but Van Hulzen received a pass from Micah Schaap and sent up a successful hook shot in the low block. Then, Van Hulzen got a defensive rebound and dribbled unguarded up the floor; he stopped outside the 3-point arch and splashed home the trey. Schaap turned a pair of steals into points sandwiched around an MLA/C bucket. Later, Van’t Hof made a drive and when Van Hulzen’s man came over to help, Van’t Hof dished the ball to Van Hulzen for the bucket. MLA/C scored the next 7 points to tie the score at 11 with 10:36 left in the first half.

Van Hulzen scored again in the low post using a feed from Jacob Uilk. The teams traded buckets with Van’t Hof getting the next one for SWC. After the home team went ahead 20-15, Cole Walhof was fouled hard going for the bucket. A high bounce that kissed off the backboard gave him 1 of 2 free throws. Schaap scored a putback of his own miss, in fact several misses. After the Wolverines went ahead by 10 at 28-18, Van Hulzen scored again. Later, Van’t Hof gave the brawny senior the ball down low for the last bucket of the first half which ended with the Eagles trailing 30-22.

The home team scored the first 5 points of the second half to make the deficit 13. Schaap fed first Van’t Hof and then Walhof for 2 buckets. Then, Schaap and Van’t Hof ran a fast break with Schaap scoring. The teams traded made free throws with Walhof scoring for SWC. Van Hulzen scored the inbounds pass and passed to Dawson Rieck to cut the Wolverine lead to 37-33. The Eagles used a putback bucket by Schaap and 2 made free throws by Van Hulzen to make the score 39-37.

The Wolverines added 2 buckets to their total intersected by a Schaap free throw. Aiden Schaap scored a bucket using a Van Hulzen pass, and then Van Hulzen splashed home a trey assisted by Van’t Hof to tie the score at 43 with 10:04 left in the game. Rieck duplicated Van Hulzen’s feat using a pass from M. Schaap. However the Eagles missed 3 of 4 free throws which would have allowed them to add to their lead. Van Hulzen did make 1. He then would score using a Van’t Hof pass to make the score 49-44 with 7:33 left in the contest.

(Photos by Joel Alvstad, Cottonwood County Citizen)