Bulldog boys out to best start in years

HAMPTON – It had been 13 years since the Bulldog boys’ basketball team started the first week of the season 2-1.

With a 48-42 win over St. Ansgar on Saturday, Dec. 7, coach Heath Walton’s team matched that.

More than the win factor, Walton said he likes the fact that his team appears to be having fun playing the game while doing it.

“I know, practices, games, people think we are demanding of our kids,” Walton said. “That doesn’t change. We talked before the game and asked, ‘the reason why you played, what’s your answer?’ And it can’t just be, ‘well, it’s fun.’ That’s got to be a part of it and I hope everybody has fun, but is it, ‘do you like the process of basketball? Do you like the atmosphere?’ The thing that I take away from tonight’s game is that we played in a way that we enjoyed playing the game of basketball.

“We did things on offense and defense better than we have in the last two games, which is improvement and down the stretch, we had opportunities where we could have started to unravel, and I thought we did a good job of attacking and finishing the game.”

In fact, Walton said he didn’t know how long it has been, but at the same time it didn’t matter.

“The last time we were .500 was 2014-5 those years,” Walton said. “What’s more exciting is, and I don’t say this to be insensitive, but I don’t care. Do we win another game throughout? Do we win eight more games? Right now, where these guys are mentally and where I am at mentally. We won tonight, we’ll enjoy it, we’ll work on Monday and we’ll work day-by-day.

“Listening to someone at one time, they did a sermon, saying, ‘don’t always worry about the hill that’s in front of you, worry about each step as you approach it.’ It’s the thing with our guys and the way my brain works. If I start worrying about what might be, I’ll be a wreck. These guys, I don’t want to demand that of them. We have to live in the moment.”

Walton hearkened back to the previous night’s game against Fort Dodge St. Edmond in which the Bulldogs fell apart after a quick start.

“Big thing is last night at St. Ed’s we shot 22 percent from the floor, so talking about it, we had a good chance to compete throughout that game and maybe get a win,” Walton said. “And, we mentally made a couple mistakes and then mentally fell apart. Tonight, our focus, naturally we wanted to win but by the end of the season, those are the things I want fixed. That we are not visibly seeing people unravel.”

The difference between that game and the one against St. Ansgar, in which the Bulldogs fell behind 37-34 with 6 minutes, 51 seconds remaining in the game on a three-pointer by Braden Powers, is the home team came back looking for an answer and got it with back-to-back threes by Wyatt Sutter and Jordan Severs. Jace Spurgeon then went 1-of-2 from the free throw line and hit a jumper off a Saints turnover for a 43-37 lead with 3:37 to go.

“We stayed up (tonight),” Sutter said of the difference between the two games. “Last night, we started missing shots and we got down on ourselves and nobody helped each other up. As soon as someone put their head down tonight, somebody helped the other guy up. It was a lot better than last night.”

Sutter, who finished with 12 points, four rebounds, three steals, two assists and two blocked shots, had both of St. Ansgar’s opening possessions wind up in his hands.

“I didn’t see any film on them,” Sutter said, “but I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, they threw it right to me, basically.”

He also had to play with foul trouble, picking up his third foul mid-way through the third and had to sit until the fourth quarter, where he was assessed with his fourth right away when he re-entered. He finished the game without being disqualified.

“I didn’t play as aggressively and coach Walton let me know about it,” Sutter said, “but, I need to get better at that and play more aggressive going forward.”

Severs, who led the Bulldogs with 17 points on 7-of-13 shooting from the field, including 3-of-6 from beyond the three-point line, finished with a double-double by hauling down 13 rebounds. He also had three steals, two rebounds and two blocked shots.

When informed of the length of time it’s been since the Bulldogs have had a winning record to start the opening week, Sutter tried to put it into perspective.

“It just proves that we can be competitive this season,” Sutter said. “It’s a lot better team that we’ve played with in the last couple of seasons and it’s going to be fun to see what we can do and accomplish.”

Bulldogs 48, St. Ansgar 42

St. Ansgar (1-1, 0-1) –Erik Gerdts 5-16 0-0 12, Ryan Cole 0-1 0-0 0, Jack Sievert 3-5 1-2 6, Cade Duckert 2-5 0-0 5, Taylor Hillman 2-3 0-1 4, Sawyer Smith 0-1 1-2 1, Adam Williams 1-6 2-3 5, Carter Salz 0-1 0-2 0, Braden Powers 3-7 1-2 9, John May 0-0 0-0 0, . Totals 16-45 4-13 42.

Bulldogs (2-1, 0-1)– Malyk Schunk 1-2 1-2 4, Cade Klein 0-0 0-0 0, Jace Spurgeon 1-4 1-5 3, Drew Uhlenhopp 2-4 0-0 4, Wyatt Sutter 5-8 0-0 12, Benji Sauke 0-1 0-0 0, Carson Miller 1-4 1-2 3, Mario De La Cruz 2-6 0-0 5, Jordan Severs 7-13 0-0 17, Colin Hill 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 19-42 3-9 48.

St. Ansgar 12     4   15   11      -   42

Bulldogs    10   10   14   14      -   48

Three-point goals – SA 6-22 (Gerdts 2-10, Powers 2-4, Williams 1-3, Duckert 1-4, Smith 0-1); H-D 7-19 (Severs 3-6, Sutter 2-4, Schunk 1-1, De La Cruz 1-4, Spurgeon 0-1, Sauke 0-1, Spurgeon 0-1, Miller 0-2). Rebounds– SA 21, 10 off. 11 def. (Cole 5, Gerdts 4, Sievert 4, Powers 4, Smith 2, Hillman, Williams); Bulldogs 29, 8 off. 21 def. (Severs 12, Sutter 4, Spurgeon 3, Miller 3, Klein 2, Uhlenhopp 2, Schunk, De La Cruz, Hill). Assists– SA 12 (Gerdts 4, Sievert 4, Williams 2, Duckert, Powers); Bulldogs 14 (Spurgeon 3, Miller 3, Uhlenhopp 2, Sutter 2, Severs 2, De La Cruz, Hill). Steals– SA 9 (Gerdts 3, Sievert 2, Duckert, Smith, Williams, Powers); Bulldogs 14 (Spurgeon 3,Sutter 3, Severs 3, Uhlenhopp 2, Miller 2, De La Cruz). Blocks– SA, None; Bulldogs 4 (Sutter 2, Severs 2). Total fouls– SA 12; Bulldogs 18. Fouled out – SA, None; Bulldogs, None.