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by Joelle Doye
A cold rain was falling outside Saturday night, but the Pointer boys basketball team had plenty of hot shots falling inside as they downed the visiting River Ridge Timberwolves 58-38 in a non-conference contest.
Mineral Point drained seven three point shots on the night--two each from Sy Staver and Trevor Wendhausen with Dakota Poad, Alec Schmitz, and Blake Weier adding one each.
The Pointers jumped out of the gates with an 8-2 run featuring baskets from Poad, Logan Benish, Ian Ewers, and Travis Steffes. A hoop from Ridge's Jacob Devlin closed first quarter scoring and made it 13-8 in favor of Point.
An 11-2 stretch late in the second quarter helped Mineral Point establish a double digit lead, one they would not relinquish for the rest of the night. Two scores from Ridge in the final 30 seconds brought the Wolves to within 30-17 at the break.
Steffes opened second half scoring, but Ridge responded with a 5-0 run to get within 10. The Pointers again found themselves up by 15 with baskets by Poad and Ewers, but the Wolves answered and again closed the deficit to 10 at 39-29 with eight minutes remaining.
A10-2 run to start the fourth for the Pointers all but put the game out of reach for River Ridge, and the three from Weier capped off an exciting offensive performance for Mineral Point with 20 seconds remaining.
River Ridge was led by Joel Mezera and Zach Raisbeck with eight points each.
Mineral Point was paced by Steffes' 13 points while Ewers added 10.
"We did a good job of getting the ball inside tonight," said Pointer coach Dan Burreson. "Travis did a nice job for us on both ends of the court, which allowed us to be able to kick the ball out to the perimeter, and we shot well from there. Trevor, Sy, and Dakota all knocked down some shots for us. We had two guys in double figures, one more with 9, and two more with 8--our good balance makes us difficult to defend."
"I thought at times our defense was good, but it needs to be better. Logan did some good things, and Cory Schultz came off the bench and gave us some solid defensive minutes as well. It's still early in the season, and we have to work harder to get better for the next test," concluded the coach.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
RR: 8-9-12-9--38
MP: 13-17-9-19--58
BOX SCORE
RIVER RIDGE (fg-ft-tp) 38: Mezera 4-0-8, Devlin 1-2/2-4, Langmeier 0-2/2-2, Raisbeck 3-1/2-8, Redman 0-5/6-5, White 3-0-6, Breuer 2-1/2-5. Totals: 13-11/18-38. Fouls: 9. Three pointers: Raisbeck 1.
MINERAL POINT 58: Staver 2-2/2-8, Poad 3-2/2-9, Benish 2-0-4, Ewers 5-0-10, Schmitz 1-0-3, Wendhausen 4-0-8, Weier 1-0-3, Steffes 5-3/6-13. Totals: 23-7/10-58. Fouls: 14. Three pointers: Staver 2, Wendhausen 2, Poad 1, Schmitz 1, Weier 1.