A weekend to forget for boys team

When the season is over for the Custer High School basketball team, it will most certainly reflect fondly on several weekends of the season as high points of the year.

Last weekend will not be among those.

After blowing a halftime lead to Pine Ridge and being pasted by 30 by St. Thomas More, one can assume Custer head coach Larry Luitjens is ready to forget last weekend ever happened.

“That’s a safe assumption,” Luitjens said.â��“Iâ��didn’t come in thinking we were going to kick St. Thomas More, but Iâ��thought we would compete, and we didn’t.”

Saturday the team hosted the Pine Ridge Thorpes, and after building up a large lead, started to let the game slip away late in the second quarter and the entire second half.

The game plan against the Wildcats seems to have gotten out, as the Thorpes extended a zone far into the perimeter to contain Custer’s three-point shooting, virtually daring the ’Cats to throw the ball into the post. The inside game never got going for the Wildcats, and a result, the team shot only 30 percent for the night.

“We shot the ball terrible, but we’re not ever going to shoot well from the outside if we can’t establish an inside presence,”â��Luitjens said.â��“Until we establish an inside presence, we won’t beat anybody that’s any good. We’ve got some good outside shooters, but I could guard them if I don’t have to worry about the ball going inside.”

The Thorpes ended the second quarter on an 8-2 run, and started the second half with the first eight points. Custer played from behind the rest of the night. Many of the Pine Ridge points came after Wildcat turnovers.

Luitjens did praise the defensive effort of both Jordan Konkol and Trevor Schryvers. Schryvers forced three turnovers in the final minutes of the game, but the Wildcats could not capitalize on them. Chad Bryant was the team’s leading scorer, with 20 points.

Friday night the team got down early and never recovered as they were worked over by the visiting St. Thomas More Cavaliers 84-34. Custer players and fans are undoubtedly tiring of losing to More, but St. Thomas More was clearly the better team as they used an up-tempo game and their size to their advantage all game long.

“The game was basically over in the first three or four minutes,”â��Luitjens said.â��“That’s disappointing. Are they bigger and stronger than us? Yes. But we didn’t compete. They took us out of what we wanted to do, and we didn’t play well on either end of the floor.”

Custer was out of sorts from the outset, as they spent most of the first period having the majority of their shots blocked by the bigger Cavs. By the time Liam Duffy nailed a three-pointer from the corner, Custer was already down 18-4. A Brandon Smith buzzer beater at the end of the first quarter stopped the bleeding momentarily, and cut the More lead to 11.

The Wildcats made a small run in the second quarter when Chad Bryant and Smith hit back-to-back three-pointers. Tyler Schultz hit a three of his own to keep Custer hanging in the game, but the Wildcats went into the half trailing 40-23.

“We knew coming into the game it was going to be physical,”â��Luitjens said. “We had worked on it and they had done a good job of being physical in practice. When we got into the game, we didn’t handle it well.”

The Cavaliers kept the lead around 20 most of the third quarter, until three straight three-pointers by Dan Herman made the score 56-32, dashing any hopes of a Wildcat comeback.

The team has a pair of tough games coming this week, beginning Thursday night in the armory against Douglas at 7:30 p.m., a team that has already defeated Custer this year. Friday the team will head north to take on Lead-Deadwood at 7:45 p.m. Custer squeezed out a victory over the ’Diggers earlier in the year at home. Luitjens feels the game will be a good opportunity to put the past weekend behind them and put the lessons to good use.

“It will be a good measuring stick to see if we have learned anything,” he said.

Custer 13 12 19 20 —64

PR 14 17 11 13 —55

Custer—TJâ��Stover 4 1-1 9, Chad Bryant 5 8-9 20, Luke Roddy 4 2-3 13, Tyler Schultz 2 1-2 6, Brandon Miller 2 3-4 7. Totals:â��17 15-19 55.

Pine Ridge—Roger Big Crow 3 2-2 10, James Pine 0 5-8 5, Orie Brown 6 3-6 16, Sonny Red Cloud 7 0-0 14, Brad Hussman 4 0-0 8, Joe Bissonette 5 0-0 11. Totals: 25 10-16 64.

Three-point goals: Custer 6 (Bryant 2, Roddy 3, Schultz), PR 4 (Big Crow 2, Brown, Bissonette). FG�percents: Custer 30, PR 52. Rebounding: Custer 24 (Roddy 7), PR 28 (Brown 7). Turnovers:�Custer 14, PR�16. Total fouls: Custer 15, PR�17. Fouled out: Bissonette.

Custer 7 16 13 18 —54

STM 18 22 24 20 —84

Custer—TJ Stover 4 4-4 14, Chad Bryant 2 0-0 5, Jordan Konkol 0 1-1 1, Brandon Smith 3 1-2 9, Luke Roddy 5 2-2 13, Tyler Schultz 3 2-3 9, Brandon Miller 1 1-2 3. Totals: 18 11-14 54.

St. Thomas More—Brendan Goetzinger 1 0-0 3, Jared Jacobson 2 0-0 4, Taylor Klapperich 0 2-2 2, Dan Herman 8 0-0 29, Skye Warrick 5 0-0 15, Liam Duffy 11 1-1 24, Garet Tucker 4 1-2 9, Brandon Bassett 2 3-3 7. Totals:â��34 7-8 84.

Three-point goals:�Custer 7 (Stover 2, Bryant, Smith 2, Roddy, Schultz), STM�9 (Goetzinger, Herman 4, Warrick 2, Duffy). FG percentages: Custer 34 (18-52), BF 56 (34-60). Rebounding: Custer 22, STM 31 (Bassett 12). Turnovers:�Custer 15, STM�11. Total fouls:�Custer 11, STM�14. Fouled out: none.