Eagles win one over the holiday break

The Northland Pines boys basketball team lost its second straight Great Northern Conference (GNC) game on the road at Lakeland 51-46 just before the holiday break, but bounced back to win one of two games in a holiday tournament at Adams-Friendship.
The Eagles started the Lakeland game back on Dec. 20 slow and fell behind early 5-0. Pines then went on a 14-0 run to lead 14-5 with 7 minutes remaining in the half.
Lakeland chipped away at the Eagles’ lead and built a 19-16 lead with four minutes to go before intermission. Both teams traded baskets with the Thunderbirds leading 25-24 at the break.
“We started off really slow and had a couple turnovers early, but we stayed the course and made a good run,” said Pines coach Terry Klemett. “But we just didn’t shoot the ball well overall and we lost a nice lead.”
The teams exchanged baskets early in the second half, with the game tied at 38 apiece with 5:30 remaining in the contest. A late corner three by Lakeland was the separation they needed to secure the 51-46 win.
“We got into another shooting slump. Sometimes we stay aggressive and we get a couple to drop. This game it seemed no one wanted to shoot,” said Klemett. “I thought we defended well enough to win, but you’re just not going to win a whole lot of games scoring only 46 on the road.”
Pines shot 40% on their field goals, but just 21% from beyond the arc.
Cody Vojta led Pines with 11 points and eight rebounds, followed by Mylo Albrecht and Jack Albrecht with nine points apiece. Jonathan Miller chipped in with eight points and Jacob Beer had seven. A.J. Muench had seven rebounds.

Holiday tourney

The Eagles traveled to Adams Friendship for a holiday tournament Dec. 27-28, taking on a strong Sparta team Friday and falling 76-62.
Northland Pines competed offensively, according to Klemett, but couldn’t get the stops they needed throughout the game to come up on top.
“This was a very good Sparta team, and it was good for us to play a team that will help us later on in the conference and for the tournament,” said Klemett.
Statistics were not available from the game.
On the second day of the holiday tournament, Dec. 28, the Eagles played Hillsboro in the consolation game and Pines got a 58-48 come-from-behind victory.
Hillsboro led throughout the first half and got up by as many as eight points before the Eagles cut the lead to one at 25-24 at the break.
Pines continued to struggle to make shots in the second and were down 34-28 with nine minutes to play. That’s when Albrecht got hot as he drilled three straight triples, plus a tough lay-in, to give the Eagles some life and the lead at 39-34.
“Our defense started to ramp up and we got some good stops,” said Klemett.
On the other end, PInes got some decent offense to build a 12-point cushion and ultimately seal the 10-point victory.
Albrecht led the Eagles with 21 points and nine rebounds, followed by Vojta with 13 points and Ethan Miller with eight.
The win pushed the Eagles record to 6-4 overall on the season. Pines is 1-2 in the GNC. The Eagles were scheduled to host Mosinee on Tuesday of this week and will travel to Medford this Friday, Jan. 10, in a pair of GNC games starting at 7:15 p.m.