Sluggish start

They say teams play the game for a reason. Tuesday night the Waseca High School boys' basketball team struggled through the first half against Waterville-Elysian-Morristown, a team the Bluejays beat by more than 50 points earlier this season.

Eventually, after beginning the game having shot 4-for-18 from the floor, the third-seeded Bluejays managed to pull it together enough to win convincingly over No. 6 seed WEM 57-38 in a sub-section tournament game in Waseca. 

“WEM made a couple shots right away, and I thought they came out and took away some things that we normally do pretty well and made us uncomfortable while they were on defense and when we were on offense,” Waseca coach Seth Anderson said. “I thought WEM played really well, and that probably had a lot to do with making us uncomfortable and making us play ugly for a lot of the first half.”

The Buccaneers were hot from the field to start, opening up a seven-point lead, shooting more than 60% from the floor over the first 10 minutes of play. 

But then the Jays decided to play defense, and only allowed four points the rest of the half and went into halftime with a 26-19 lead. 

The Jays were sluggish to start the second half, too, letting the Buccaneers cut it to three, seven minutes out of intermission. 

But the Bluejays answered with a 12-3 run to push the lead to double digits. The Jays, finally, sailed from there.

“I just want us to play our best basketball at the end of the year here,” Coach Anderson said. “And whatever that means as far as executing well on offense, having a good shooting night. Our Achilles heel all year has been being able to rebound the basketball. We had stretches where we really looked terrible rebounding the ball again tonight. We have guys that I think are playing hard, but we're not coming away with quite enough loose balls to get to that next level, to end some runs, or, give us a couple buckets just to help spur a run for us.”

Damarius Russell led the Jays in scoring with 22, followed by Carson Ohnstad 14, Laird Keeton 12, Deron Russell 6, and Zach Hulscher 3. 

With the win, the Jays moved onto play in the second round of the tournament against LCWM at Mankato East Thursday. 

The second-seeded Knights, who have been ranked as a top-five team the majority of the season, enter Thursday’s contest with a record of 26-1. 

“They're very athletic,” Anderson answered. “They've got a lot of firepower.”

The winner Thursday plays Monday at Minnesota State University-Mankato.