Cougars keep G-R down, but not out

ACKLEY — AGWSR mounted a furious fourth quarter rally and held Gladbrook-Reinbeck well below its season average, but the Rebels emerged with a 42-37 win at Ackley on Friday, Jan. 8.

Cougars’ head coach Ryley Schipper was thrilled with his team’s defense, much like it had performed the night before against a ranked Janesville team.

“I think for us, we’ve relied on our defense and we’ve played defense really well this year,” Schipper said. “Last night, we played a Janesville team which is 8-1 and gave up 44 and tonight played a G-R team that is 5-2 and gave up 42.

“That’s what we have to have games at. We’re not going to score a ton of points and we haven’t so far this year, so if we can limit the possessions for another team and have long offensive possessions, we have a shot.”

The Cougars pulled to within a pair at 34-32 with 3 minutes, 43 seconds to go on a three-pointer by Daniel Stahl, who had 13 points to compliment Jaden Penning’s 14, but could get no closer.

“Tonight, in the second half especially, was tremendous,” Schipper said. “I couldn’t be more proud of the way the guys fought tonight.”

But G-R’s Will Kiburis scored a game-high 21 points, going off after having to go out of the game early while hitting his neck hard against the padding going out of bounds on a scoring attempt.

“Will did a very good job,” Schipper said. “As a sophomore, he knows the game really well, he can get into the lane and he finishes really well.

“We knew that coming in and he adjusted to what we were doing, trying to stop him and that’s a credit to him. Moving forward, next time we play them we have to figure out how to stop him, but for us to give up 42 points against those guys, I felt really confident and it gives us some confidence moving forward that we can compete in good games on any given night.”

Penning hit a three-pointer with 25.2 seconds to go that pulled the Cougars to within 40-36, but G-R hit a pair of free throws to keep the home team at bay.

Schipper also said he was happy with the way his team handled the Rebels’ full-court press that backed off once the Cougars crossed the half-court line.

“I knew coming out, they would press and tonight we didn’t turn it over very much against it,” Schipper said. “Once we beat the pressure, we didn’t make a quick shot, we pulled it out and really relied on our offense and moved the basketball to find open looks.

“That was our game-plan, not to go too fast. If we get a break, we’d pull it out and I thought we did a good job. We had a few turnovers, but for us, it was all about moving the basketball side to side and understanding that we’ve got 10 seconds and that was huge for us and give us the mentality, the slower the play, the better off we are.”

Gladbrook-Reinbeck 42, AGWSR 37

AGWSR (2-6, 1-5)– Daniel Stahl 5 0-1 13, Bradly Roder 1 0-0 3, Jaden Penning 3 6-10 14, David Koop 1 1-2 4, Ben Macy 0 1-3 1, Chase Harms 1 0-0 2, Darren Veld 0 0-0 0. Totals 10 8-16 37.

Gladbrook-Reinbeck (5-2, 3-1)– Luke Riffey 0-5 1-2 1, Caleb Egesdal 2-5 0-0 5, Will Kiburis 10-19 1-5 21, Dylan Riffey 3-10 2-4 11, Tristen Sanford-Anders 1-5 2-4 4, Isaac Clark 0-0 0-0 0, Logan Giesking 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 16-44 6-15 42.

G-R             10   12     9   11      -   42

AGWSR     10     2   12   13      -   37

Three-point goals– G-R 4-21 (D. Riffey 3-10, Egesdal 1-4, Kiburis 0-3, L. Riffey 0-4); AGWSR 7 (Stahl 3, Penning 2, Roder , Koop). Rebounds– G-R 34 (Kiburis 7, Sanford-Anders 7, D. Riffey 6, L. Riffey 5, Egesdal 5, Giesking 2, Clark); AGWSR, NA. Assists– G-R 10 (Egesdal 3, Kiburis 3, L. Riffey 2, D. Riffey, Clark); AGWSR, NA. Steals– G-R 3 (Egesdal 2, Kiburis); AGWSR, NA. Blocks – G-R 2 (Kiburis, Sanford-Anders; AGWSR, NA. Total fouls – G-R 16, AGWSR, NA. Fouled out – AGWSR (Harms).