Leopold falls to Greenville in WIT third place game

Leopold led by five after the first (16-11) and third quarters (40-35) and was ahead by 10 at halftime (29-19) but three starters fouling out in the final quarter proved to be too much to overcome as the Wildcats fell 48-47 to Greenville in the third place contest of the Woodland Invitational Tournament Dec. 6.

Riley Engelen departed after picking up his fifth personal with 6:43 remaining. He scored seven points before getting too many fouls. Senior Karsen Castile left the game at the 4:17 mark after picking up a fifth personal. Leopold was clinging to a 40-38 lead at that time. Nine seconds later, a basket by Preston Campbell gave the Wildcats a 42-38 lead. Two made field goals by Greenville in the next 50 seconds tied the contest at 42.

Drew Engelen was left alone beneath the bucket and caught an inbounds pass, putting it through to give LHS a 44-42 lead with 2:55 remaining. The Bears responded with a field goal from Ian Meyer, tying it at 44.

The Wildcats missed a 3-pointer with 90 seconds left, then got another chance after an offensive rebound by Avery Hoesli. Eventually, Preston Campbell was called for an offensive foul with 54.4 seconds left, giving Greenville possession in the final minute. The Bears took advantage as senior Jimmy Marler grabbed his initial miss then put another attempt back in, giving Greenville its first lead with 35 seconds remaining. Leopold still had an opportunity to tie, or possibly take the lead back. Drew Engelen missed a field goal, grabbed his missed, then was fouled as his second attempt was off the mark. He made the second of two foul shots, leaving the Wildcats down 46-45 and forcing Leopold to foul.

Cooper Sturgeon took the inbounds pass with 9.2 seconds and was immediately fouled. He made both foul shots to put Greenville in front 48-45.

The Wildcats had a final chance to tie it and possibly force overtime but Tommy Beussink bypassed a 3-point chance for a two-point layup and by then the quarter expired, leaving Leopold with a one-point defeat. Beussink was the top scored for Leopold, finishing with 15 and three of his team’s six made 3-pointers.

“When you’ve got three starters foul and and you’ve got two freshman, two sophomores, it happens to you when you’re playing at this level," Leopold coach Jimmy Lincoln said. "We just didn’t handle the situation and got into some foul trouble. We caused some of it ourselves. We didn’t do a very good job of not reaching."

Lincoln didn't blame the officials.

Late in the second half, the Wildcats attempted to slow down the game on offense and work for a high-percentage shot. This also had a dual purpose in burning clock.

"When you’ve got your two leading scorers, the two players with varsity experience sitting by you, yeah, we couldn’t get a tempo, we couldn’t handle their size inside with my bigs sitting on the bench. Yeah, I was kinda trying to eat the clock and shorten the game for us.

"It’s a learning (experience). He’s a sophomore in high school. It’s a learning moment for our team," Lincoln said. "We lost five seniors last year. We just don’t have a lot of experience. We’ll learn from it, hopefully, I think we’ll get better as the season goes on. These type of games, we’ll go in film and talk about some situations. We had some opportunities to go I feel like to the basket and get some buckets but I think we got too passive."

“We’ll learn from it. It’s going to be a learning year,” he said. “There’s no sense in getting upset. We just need to get better. As the season progresses, our sophomores will turn into juniors and that’ll make us better and our freshmen will turn into sophomores."

Sturgeon paced the Bears with 21 points, including 7-for-11 at the foul line. He kept Greenville close early on, scoring nine of the team’s 11 points in the first quarter.

Greenville made just one 3-pointer but held a 15-12 edge in converted 2-point field goals. The Bears were 15-for-25 at the foul line while Leopold went 5-for-12.