Season ends for Bulldog boys

ALGONA – The visiting Bulldogs in this Class 3A Sub-state 2 boys’ basketball game was rolling right along with a 29-25 third quarter lead over Algona when senior forward Drew Uhlenhopp went down with an ankle injury.

All of the air that coach Heath Walton’s team had in it seemed to go out and the home Bulldogs went on a run to lead 35-29 and then went on to take the post-season game, 60-50, on Monday, Feb. 24.

“He’s been playing so well,” Walton said. “The last few weeks, he’s really given us so much. Defensively, at the beginning of the year, he was really a pretty good anchor, and then in these last three weeks, offensively he’s been contributing, helping control the ball.

“We had a lot of guys getting in and had to play different roles, but it couldn’t help but have an impact when he went down. He’s been doing a great job.”

Algona kept stretching its advantage to double digits, but H-D kept coming up with plays to bring it to within single digits late into the game.

“I thought we played as hard as we needed to,” Walton said. “It comes down to a couple of little things as the game went on, but if we’re going to lose, at least we went out with a fight. We didn’t just roll over just because we had to come to Algona and play again.

“The last time we played here, I think we scored six points in the first half, so this group has improved as much as anybody we’ve had in a long time. Extremely proud of them.”

The last time coach Walton’s team played Algona was at Hampton and that, too, was a close contest. The one who did all of the damage in that game was Wyatt Wegener. In the sub-state game, this time, it was Noah Nelson. At a key juncture of the second half, Mario De La Cruz attempted a three-pointer that went halfway down and back out and then on the other end, Nelson nailed a three of his own for a six-point swing.

“Nelson, shot the ball, he had five threes,” Walton said. “It brought it back to 10 points. At that point, we were trying to scrap some things together and defend. That’s how it went.”

Walton says goodbye to multiple seniors, including three senior starters, Uhlenhopp, Carson Miller and Wyatt Sutter.

“From the start of the year, so many different things,” Walton said. “We’d start practice, the seniors would take stretching. Coaches could be planning, getting drills set up. Never had to worry about stuff getting done. When we would have meetings, everyone was on time, it was just so many things this year.

“On Friday night, I was happy being with them, they made it so enjoyable: Wyatt and Drew and Carson aren’t the most chatty fellas, but you could count on them. Our juniors are a group that work hard and play fast and so when we combined those two groups together, I was so pleased with how they gelled, meshed. Between seniors taking the lead and juniors stepping up and doing what was expected, I’m going to walk away from this and still be kind of shocked that we only one three games.”

Jordan Severs led the visitors with 15 points and Sutter added 14.

“We had five games in the last month that we could have won,” Walton said. “We have to figure out how to do that and I as a coach have to figure out how to get over those little humps. That’s an off-season challenge.”

The cupboard won’t be completely bare for Walton and the Bulldogs, who has a pair of starters returning as well as a handful of others who had plenty of playing experience this season.

“We have a lot of kids who like to play basketball,” Walton said. “From eighth grade to eleventh grade we have kids that I think we’ll be in the gym every time it is open. I’m excited about the kids we have coming, I’m excited about how eager they are to do basketball stuff and we’ll build off of that.”