LA CROSSE — The Melrose-Mindoro High School boys basketball ran into a buzzsaw Friday afternoon at the La Crosse Center.
North Crawford, which is second in this week’s Division 5 Bound Wisconsin/Zaleski Sports media poll, went double overtime before falling to top-ranked Kickapoo on Thursday night.
But the quick turnaround didn’t hurt the Trojans a bit.
North Crawford made 11 3-pointers during a 58-point first half that propelled it to a 95-78 victory over the Mustangs in the first game of the Midwest Players Classic.
“We decided we were really going to pack it in and try to keep (Sawyer Stluka) from getting in the lane, which we didn’t do a great job of,” Melrose-Mindoro coach Dave Cowley said. “But they shot it so well, and even made the ones where we were in their face.”
The Mustangs did make nine 3-pointers in the game, but a 58-36 halftime deficit was too much to overcome.
Sophomore Landry Stluka scored a team-high 23 points for the Trojans (11-2), who also received 18 points from senior Cullen Jacobus and 14 from Sawyer Stluka as they got back on the winning track.
The Mustangs (3-8) recovered from yielding the first eight points with a seven-point run of their own.
But soon a 14-11 deficit turned into 32-20 and ballooned to more than 30 in the second half as North Crawford chased the 100-point mark.
Sophomore Will Radcliffe made six 3-pointers and scored 20 points to lead Melrose-Mindoro, which also received 12 from sophomore Brooks Cowley, 11 from junior Brady Blaken and 10 from sophomore Wyatt McHugh.
The Mustangs have lost three straight games since an 80-60 win over Whitehall, and Cowley said his young team has experienced some ups and downs. Playing effective defense, he said, has been the biggest challenge, and that was a problem against the Trojans.
“Not many teams that we play in the Dairyland (Conference) play that fast,” Cowley said. “I didn’t think it would be as big of a deal as it was.”
McHugh (12-1 ppg) and Cowley (12.0 ppg) have given Melrose-Mindoro a couple of reliable double-figure scorers, and Radcliffe scored 24 in the win over Whitehall and gave the team a spark on Friday by knocking down a 3-pointer as soon as he entered the game off the bench.
“We’re a really young team that shows minutes of brilliance and moments of being a very young team,” Cowley said. “We’re having trouble with the defensive concepts right now, and I’m still trying to get them to dribble less and pass more.
“We want to keep the game simple, and sometimes we make it harder.”
