Dodgers lose but show signs of improvment

Heading into the season coaches in the Badger Small were giving the Sauk Prairie Eagles a lot of respect.

The Eagles showed those comments might be right on when they turned back Dodgeville 66-45 in a non-conference home match-up.

Nicolas Keyser, a 5-11 junior, had the touch and put in 21 points to lead the Eagles.  Brayton Wardrop and Tristan Kerska added 14 and 11.  Nine Eagles got into the scoring column.

The Dodgers spotted the Eagles an eight point lead at 9-1 early then got within two for most of the first half.  But the Eagles were able to regroup and get the lead back to a comfortable level the rest of the way.

Even though it was a loss Dodgeville coach Matt McGraw saw some things to build on.

“It may not look like it by the scoreboard but our guys made progress tonight from an improvement standpoint,”McGraw said. “On many offensive possessions we were able to get good looks against a very solid and physical Sauk team.” 

“We grew up a little tonight on both ends of the court,”added McGraw. “Don’t get me wrong, we still have a lot of things to clean up to get to the level of play we want to be at. It’s also unrealistic to think it’s going to happen overnight with the amount of minutes we lost from last year.” 

“Bryce Crubaugh-Lockard had another solid game for us. He is a consistent scorer and is playing at a high level.” McGraw said. “Brady has his best game of the season and Ben took on the role of floor general tonight.”

SCORE BY HALVES

Dodgeville    18     27    45

S-P                28     38    66

BOX SCORE

DODGEVILLE 45: (fg-ft-tp) McGraw 1-2-4, Fockler 0-1-1, Crubaugh-Lockard 5-0-13, Berg 4-1-9, Jabs 2-2-7, Haakenson 0-3-3, Honerbaum 0-0-0, LaMere 0-0-0, Pittz 2-1-6, Argall 0-0-0 Hessling 0-0-0, Watt 1-0-2, Scheckel 0-0-0. Totals 15-10/18-45 Fouls-9

SAUK-PRAIRIE 66: Andres 1-1-3, Henderson 1-0-2, Wardrop 6-2-14, Kurska 5-0-11, Backberg 0-0-0, Brickl 0-1-1, Buckles 0-0-0, Keyser 10-1-21. Ashley 2-2-6, Schaaf 1-0-3, Breunig 2-0-5, Deuman 0-0-0. Totals 28-7/11-66. Fouls-16

3 point goals:

D-Crubaugh-Lockard 3, Jabs 1 Pittz 1

SP-Kurska 1, Schaaf 1, Breunig 1