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Division 4 semifinal notes
By Dick Knapinski
For Wissports.net

It will take a long time for Blair-Taylor coach Randy Storlie to get over this one.

“Devastation. Utter devastation,” he said of his feelings after witnessing Grantsburg come back from an 11-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat the Wildcats 54-49 in overtime Thursday in the Division 4 semifinals.

Blair-Taylor seemed to be in control for most of the game, leading by at least nine points through the second half until just 2:26 remained. The Wildcats, who have yet to emerge with a win in seven state tourney appearances, then saw their game come undone.

“I have no idea exactly how that unfolded,” Storlie said of the stretch that saw the Pirates erase the deficit in exactly two minutes and tie the game 44-44 on Daniel Biorn’s layup with 26 seconds left in regulation.

“The game got kind of free lance and got away, and played into their hands.”

Storlie has built one of the state’s top small-school programs over the past 15 years, but Thursday night’s loss was one of the most crushing he’s felt in nearly three decades as a head coach.

“Anything that could have went badly for us did, any mistake we could have me made, we did,” he said. “In 30 years of coaching, this is a devastating loss, no question about it.

On the other side…

It was not pretty with 27.6 percent shooting from the field and 55.6 percent from the foul line, but Grantsburg managed to push forward to Saturday’s championship game against Marathon. And Pirates coach Nick Hallberg credited his team’s pressure defense based a on a simple premise:

“Necessity. Pure necessity,” Hallberg said afterward. “I be lying if I thought I thought we could pressure (Blair-Taylor guard Hank Kujak).”

The Pirates stayed in the Wildcats’ faces in the second half and eventually wore them down, opening a small sliver of hope.

“We’ve been known to do that a little bit,” Hallberg said. “We feel like we could have been an unbeaten team here, too. We just kept pressuring the ball.”

Streak-snapper

Grantsburg guard Connor Myers got a first at the state tournament – his first three pointer of the year after 23 unsuccessful tries.

“I’m glad you guys noticed that,” Hallberg said of Myers’ three, which came with 6:30 left in regulation and brought the Pirates back to within 31-22.

“He’s actually a very good three-point shooter. In eighth grade he was probably our best three-point shooter. I’m not sure what happened there.”

Hobbled a bit

Kujak as moving slowly in the final quarter and in overtime against Grantsburg, but it wasn’t due to exhaustion.

“I rolled my left ankle there,” he said. “I couldn’t do everything I wanted to do.”

A Marathon battle next

Saturday’s Division 4 state title game also includes Marathon, a team that was a power in the 1970s but has not been at the state tourney since 1984.

“You know, I got here in my first year in succeeding Tom Weinkauf as a 24-year-old, and I thought that every three or four years we’d be coming down here,” Red Raiders coach Jeff Reiche said after Marathon’s 68-50 semifinal win over Oostburg on Thursday night.

“I made the sectional finals three times since then and had some disappointments.”

Marathon won three straight state titles when they grabbed the consecutive Class C championships in 1975, 1976 and 1977.

Cody Hanke scored 20 of his 31 points in the first half as the Red Raiders (26-1) shot 62 percent from the field and held the Flying Dutchmen (26-1) to 35.8 percent shooting.

“We wanted to get more post-ups, particularly on the opposite wing of their 1-3-1 if we could, but they just make it difficult with what they do on the strong side,” Oostburg coach Kevin Bruggink said.

Hand me a Hanke

Hanke was dominant for the Red Raiders, finishing with 31 points, 10 rebounds and six steals.

What does that mean for Reiche?

“It means my heart rate doesn’t go above 140,” he said after the Red Raiders took a 30-14 halftime lead. “We’re more than a one-person team, but if he’s double-teamed he’s as good a passer as there is.”

Bruggink said Oostburg never found a good solution for Hanke during the game.

“As coaches on the bench we talked that the game goes real slow for him,” Bruggink said. “He has a lot of poise, and that’s probably the biggest compliment to him.”

Down and out

Grantsburg reserve forward Seth Coy gave a scary moment to the crowd in the first quarter of Thursday’s semifinals, as the 6-foot-4 junior hit his head on the Kohl Center floor after a first-half collision. He did not return to play, although he sat on the Grantsburg bench with an ice pack on his neck throughout the second half.

According to Hallberg, the UW medical staff determined Coy suffered a concussion and he will not play in Saturday’s championship game.

Note:  Attendance for the Division 5 night session was 7,280 according to the WIAA.