Pointers use time wisely to earn championship game

There were 22 seconds left in the game and the Mineral Point boys basketball team had a hill to climb if they were going to extend their stay at the Kohl Center in the WIAA Division 4 state tournament Thursday.

The Pointers were trailing La Crosse Aquinas 61-54 and knew they had to make the most of the final 22 clicks.

And that is what they did.

With 22 seconds left Drew Aschliman took a pass on a fast break and drilled a three pointer to  slice into the lead at 62-57.  

With 15 seconds remaining Alex Ross took advantage of a Blugold turnover and made it a two point game.

Was the impossible about to happen?

After a time out that had Pointer coach Dan Burreson setting up the final shot, the Pointers came back on the court, got the ball to Langdon Thousand on the elbow and the senior point guard turned in a nothing but net game winning three pointer.

The scoreboard read 62-61 and the Pointers were able to live another day and assure themselves of a gold or silver ball for the trophy case with the championship game Saturday.

Burreson said the final shot was not a designed play and the Pointers left the huddle with only one job to do.

“We needed it to go to Langdon,” Burreson said.

That was a good idea seeing that Thousand was having a night and ended up leading the Pointers with 24 points.

Thousand knew he had to take the last shot.

“I didn’t have my feet set exactly the way I wanted but I knew I had to shoot it,” Thousand said with a smile. He was very satisfied with the result as were the Pointer faithful whose cheers may still be echoing throughout the home of the Badgers.

One of the keys to the win were bench points. The Blugolds had eight and the Pointers 19, mainly thanks to a 17 point outburst from Aschliman and two more from Jaxson Wendhausen.

It was a close game with 20 lead changes along with being tied six times.  

The Pointers held the lead for 14:46 and Aquinas 15:17.  Aquinas had an eight point lead in the first half for their largest margin and the Pointers led by six for their biggest margin in the second half.

Adding to the scoring of Thousand and Aschliman was Eli Lindsey who netted 14.  Thousand had seven rebounds and Jake Phillips came off the bench to grab six.  Thousand had six assists and Lindsey three.

The Pointers then had about 20 hours to get ready for Kenosha Saint Josephs and a shot at the D4 title.

SCORE BY HALVES

Mineral Point      28   34    62

Aquinas                23   38    61

BOX SCORE

MINERAL POINT 62: (fg-ft-tp) Ross 2-0-4, Thousand 10-1-24, Vamstad 0-1-1, Lindsey 6-1-14, Radtke 0-0-0, Wendhausen 1-0-2, Aschliman 6-0-17, Phillips 0-0-0, Filardo 0-0-0, Kennicker 0-0-0 totals 25-3/8-62. Fouls-16

AQUINAS 61: Peterson 1-1-3, Willerbring 3-0-6, Skemp 3-0-7, Berns 4-1-10, Becker 9-9-27, Bahr 2-2-8, Dickinson 0-0-0, Keppel 0-0-0. Totals 22-13/18-61. Fouls-8

3 point goals:

MP-Thousaid 3, Aschliman 5, Lindsey 1

A-Bahr 2, Berns 1, Skemp 1