Boys basketball: Chi-Hi continues BRC title chase with road win

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By DAVID BOSSICK mailto:david.bossick@lee.net
Saturday, February 9, 2008 1:17 AM CST

HUDSON — Chippewa Falls’ road to a Big Rivers Conference championship avoided any potholes by knocking off Hudson Thursday, 56-39.

The Cardinals, the second place team in the BRC, needed the road win against the third place Raiders to help ensure a possible share of the league title with a win against Eau Claire North Tuesday. Should Chi-Hi earn a shared title, it would be the Cardinals first title since the 1987-88 season.

The game’s meaning wasn’t lost on the team, either.

“We talked about how important this game was if we wanted to win the conference,”Chi-Hi coach Luke Madsen said. “Now, Saturday’s game (against Eau Claire Memorial) is our most important game before we can play for the league on Tuesday.”

Chi-Hi (14-3, 7-2 BRC) looked like its team of old after back-to-back rough outings, a loss to La Crosse Logan Tuesday night and a hard-fought win against Altoona last week. The Cardinals had Brad Meade back in the line-up after being out those games with a foot injury.

“He practiced maybe 15-20 minutes (Wednesday) night and he was ready to go tonight,” Madsen said. “He’s a leader on our team and it shows how much we missed him. Josh (Prince) and Brad (Goeman) are leaders out there, too, but Brad brings a different kind of leadership to the floor.”

Meade typically pesters other teams’ big men and bring those big bodies out of their comfort zone and to the perimeter. He banged with Hudson’s Seth Stanchik and helped to hold the Raiders’ center to six points. Stanchik leads the league with a scoring average of 19.2 points per game.

Both schools are dealing with a breakout of influenza. Hudson dressed just eight players while the Cardinals had a nearly full line-up, but players such as Dustin Kalien had to fight through their illness to play.

“Kalien was home sick yesterday and he was in bed this morning sick,”Madsen said. “He came into to school to be able to play tonight and he played very well.”

Despite being ill, Kalien finished with 12 points.

Kalien joined Prince and Cole Zwiefelhofer in cutting into the lane and hitting needed buckets against Hudson’s defense. The slashing helped to build Chi-Hi’s lead as well as the kick-out shots by Goeman for three points.

Prince led all scorers with 17 points while Zwiefelhofer finished with nine and Goeman and Meade had eight points apiece.

After Chi-Hi built a small lead, the Cardinals did what they typically do — switch defenses from man-to-man to a 1-3-1 zone. The zone defense helped to stymie the Raiders’ offense.

The Cardinals were up seven by halftime because of their work on defense and led by as many as 18 points in the second half.

Hudson (10-7, 6-4 BRC) was able to cut the lead down to 10 points late in the fourth quarter on back-to-back 3-pointers from John Dahl and Jordan Vitek. But the Cardinals finished the game on a 7-0 run, including shooting 5-for-7 at the free throw line.

“They were getting those 3s to fall, but we were content to let them shoot those 26-footers with a hand in their face,”Madsen said.

Ben Gresmer ended with 11 points for the Raiders as the team lost its third straight game.

Chi-Hi will attempt to avenge an earlier season loss to the Old Abes this afternoon at 3 p.m. in Eau Claire, but Madsen said revenge isn’t on the team’s mind.

“We know that we can’t take anybody lightly because of their record,” he said. “They proved that. If we want to win a title, we’ve got to win on Saturday.”