CL boys run hot and cold

(Pictured Above) Parker Truesdell (left) and Zach Lester try to turn good defense into some offense for the Lions.-Reporter photo by Chris Barragy.

The Clear Lake boys basketball team sits at 7-7, 5-3 after splitting a pair of North Central Conference games last week.  The Lions earned a victory over Hampton-Dumont Tuesday, but were handled by St. Ed’s on Friday.

CL 66, Hampton-Dumont 60

Thomas Storbeck and Parker Truesdell provided a one-two punch as the Lions knocked out Hampton-Dumont 66-60 on the Bulldogs’ home court Tuesday, Jan. 19.   Storbeck scored 26 and Truesdell added 19 in the Clear Lake victory.  Zach Tatum was also in double figures with 11 points and shared rebounding honors with Truesdell.  Each player had nine boards.

The Lions started strong and broke out to an11-2 lead.  The Bulldogs came back and were able to take an 12-11 lead after the first quarter.

The teams went back and forth for much of the second quarter until the final two-minutes when the Lions went on a run to go up by 13 at the half, 35-22.

Hampton-Dumont made another run to start the third period, but the Lions effectively held them off and were ahead by 11 to start the final quarter.

“It’s always tough to play on the road in the conference and at Hampton is no different, as they have been playing well as of late,” said Coach Jeremy Ainley.  “Hampton switched some things defensively (in the fourth quarter) and we struggled and allowed them to cut it to one point with three minutes to go.  We were able to get some key stops down the stretch and made our free throws in the last minute to get a tough fought road win.”

The coach said his team was missing some players that didn’t make the road trip.

“We were a little short handed, but everybody contributed, including some guys like Ryan Atkinson, Cody Matz and Lucas Kirchhoff that haven’t gotten a lot of minutes this season but gave us

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some great minutes tonight when really needed.”

He noted Storbeck shot the ball well, despite an injury to his shooting hand, and had his best all-around game with seven assists and six rebounds.

Zach Lester put in five points for the Lions.  Cody Matz and Parker Pitzen finished with three and two points respectively.  Matz also helped the Lions on defense, coming off the bench to get six rebounds.

“Overall, it was a tremendous team effort,” said Ainley.

St. Eds 45, CL 29

After one of their best shooting efforts in Hampton on Tuesday, the Lions followed up with their worst shooting of the year on Friday.  The Gaels from St. Edmond held the Lions to single digit scoring in three out of four quarters and rolled to a 45-29 NCC win.

Unlike the previous outing, where three Lions scored in double figures, this time no player topped nine points.

“I thought we got some good looks in the first half, but just could not hit anything,” said Coach Ainley.

The Lions started cold, scoring only one basket in the first eight-minutes, and the drought continued through the first half.  St. Eds led 21-10 at the break.

Clear Lake seemed to make appropriate adjustments at halftime and got their game back on track in the third.  They rattled off 16 points, while holding the Gaels to nine, in the third period and pulled within three at one point.

But the fourth period belonged to the Gaels, as they outscored the Lions 15-3 for the 16-point victory.

Parker Pitzen topped the Lions in scoring with nine and rebounds with six.  Thomas Storbeck added eight points before fouling out.  Parker Truesdell was credited with five points, Zach Lester had four and Zach Tatum had three points.

On the night, the Lions shot a cool 25 percent from two point range and made just two of 17 three-point attempts.  They were 5/14 from the free throw line.

Cody Matz came off the bench to grab five rebounds for the Lions.

“We were not aggressive enough on offense and did not look fluid at anything,” said the coach.  “ Defensively 45 points was good enough to win, but 29 points on offense will not win games.  We will go back to work and continue to get better.”

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