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Randolph High School basketball fans had to be scratching their collective heads at halftime Saturday night - after the host Rockets had been stymied by the visiting Pecatonica Vikings for much of the entire first half during a WIAA D-5 boys basketball regional championship game showdown.
The fial was 56-39, but the Vikings had their moments.
Coach Matt Fink's team had used a pair of Zack Eaton free throws, a Carter Ruegsegger trey, a pair of Colton Schraepfer free throws, a Jaden Hendrickson steal and lay-up, followed by a Hendrickson charity throw conversion - to take a quick 10-6 lead.
Enter Viking junior Bo Hendrickson, and the junior sharpshooter would nail back-to-back treys mid-way through the half and when coupled with Eaton's second effort hoop in the lane, Pec players would take a 18-10 lead at the 5:06 mark, prompting the Randolph coaching staff to call for a hurried time out in order to regroup.
Following a Rockets' flurry, Schraepfer would go coast to coast for a lay-up and Fink's squad hustled into the locker room at halftime with a hard fought 22-19 lead.
Their good fortune would not last.
The Rockets, after all, had entered the game as Wisconsin's top-ranked D-5 team, possessed a perfect and unblemished record and after appearing a bit out of sorts, early, whatever speech coach Tyler Fischer delivered to his youthful charges in the locker toom at the break, well.....worked.
The Rockets came out after intermission on a 10-2 run, ignited by a pair of field goals including a trey from senior guard Jake Roberts and including additional baskets by junior Peyton Moldenhauer and sophomore Brayden Haffele.
Pec's Jaden Hendrickson slowed the momentum momentarily by hitting a 12 footer from the wing but baskets by Sawyer Westra and Roberts extended Randolph's lead.
When Moldenhauer scored again on a rebound put-back hoop and after Roberts nailed a trey and after Haffele scored on a pair of lay-ups. the Rockets, yes, had rocketed from a three-point halftime deficit - to a commanding 42-28 lead.
Eaton scored off an offensive rebound by the Vikes and Jaden Hendrickson nailed a pair of free throws with 3:10 to go in the game but Randolph would counter with three straight scores - to extend a ballooning lead to 18 at 54-36.
From there, coaches cleared the benches and fans from both schools lauded their seniors at substitution breaks, because win or lose, games beyond the regional round are played on neutral courts. The Rockets put the clamps on almost everything the Vikings had hoped to accomplish on offense after the break, holding the Vikings to just six second half field goals.
Brayden Haffele scored a team-high 18 points for coach Rockets while teammate Jake Roberts added 17 and Peyton Moldenhauer chipped in with eight.
For the Vikings and in the final game of their season, the team was led by Jaden Hendrickson's 13 points. Teammates Zack Eaton, Colton Schraepfer and Bo Hendrickson added 10, 7 and 6 points respectively.
With the loss, the Vikings finished with an 18-7 record - while their Randolph counterparts, now sporting a perfect 24-0 record, play again tonight (Thursday, March 7) in a Sectional semi-final versus Rio at McFarland. Rio had eliminated Six Rivers East regular season champion, Barneveld, Saturday in another WIAA D-5 regional title game and one that went to overtime before being decided.
"It's always tough to say goodbye to the seniors," said Coach Fink, in the locker room. "They are a group that will be greatly missed because of their success and they are a group - and I mean every one of them, who contributed to our on-court success. They all played meaningful minutes and to have a class that deep is going to be tough to replace. They have left a great mark here. They've been to regional championship games three times in their four years in high school. They have played in the WIAA Sectionals. They've won conference championships - they've done everything and they've left their mark on Pec basketball. We say goodbye, knowing, as coaches, that we've been really fortunate to work with these individuals who are really high quality kids. As for this game, we had watched a lot of film of and we felt our 1-2-2 defense would be our best option and it did stymie them for perhaps the first 10 or 12 minutes of the game," added Fink. "We felt like we had them confused and the shots they were making were really tough shots. They figured it out and they adjusted to it at half time and we wanted, at that point, to show a 1-3-1 in the second half. They caught us a few too many times there after the half and yet frankly, I didn't feel our defense was the problem. The problem was our inability to finish and to score on the offensive end. Randolph defends so well with their pack line defense and you absolutely must make multiple perimeter shots to beat them and we weren't able to make enough of those. Credit Randolph. They are a really good team. We left feeling that if we made some shots late we could have won that game. And as coaches and players, we really, really want to thank the students, the fans, relatives, parents, all who all made the trip up here to Randolph. It's a long trip and we can't express enough how much we appreciated all that support. For a half and more - they got to see a really good basketball game. We just feel bad we couldn't finish it with a win."
Randolph 56 Pecatonica 39
Randolph 19 37 - 56
Pecatonica 22 17 - 39
Randolph (ft-ft-tp) Kohn 0-1-1, Grieger 0-4-4, Haffele 9-0-18, Alvin 1-0-2, Moldenhauer 2-4-8, Westra 2-2-6, Roberts 7-0-17.
Three-pointers: Roberts 3. Totals: 18 (3) 11-13 56. Fouls: 14
Pecatonica (fg-ft-tp) Schraepfer 2-2-7 J. Hendrickson 4-5-13, Eaton 4-2-10, Ruegsegger 1-0-3, B. Hendrickson 2-0-6. Three-pointers: B. Hendrickson 2, Ruegsegger, Schraepfer. Totals: 9 (4) 9-15 39. Fouls: 15.