Flatonia’s Big Comeback Nips Schulenburg by a Single Point
The Schulenburg and Flatonia boy’s basketball teams went toe-to-toe in a thrilling district rivalry rematch Friday night as Flatonia completed an enormous comeback and defeated the Shorthorns 45-44 to improve to 18-2 overall and remain undefeated in district at 7-0.
Schulenburg set the tone early with their suffocating defense, especially down low, which helped the flow of their offense. A big lead in the first half began to dwindle down in the second as the Bulldogs never lost sight of victory by increasing the pressure on defense and hitting big shots when needed.
“It was a good win, it was tough,” said Flatonia head boy’s basketball coach Chris Sodek. “A lot of credit should be given to Schulenburg. They played really good defense. They took away a lot of what we wanted and we were fortunate that we were able to play good enough defense in the second half to claw back in it and find a way to win at the end. That Schulenburg team is tough. They’re going to be playing for a really long time in the playoffs.”
Sophomore Holden Kloesel finished with a team-high 14 points and hit two clutch three-pointers in a row during the fourth quarter to put another mark in the win column. “My guys just played really good defense and found me for open threes,” Kloesel said. “I hope I can hit an open three when it’s the time.” Flatonia was able to snap Schulenburg’s six-game win streak and put the Shorthorns with an overall record of 12-5 and 5-2 in district.
“First of all, congratulations to Flatonia,” said Schulenburg head boy’s basketball coach Rich Hoogendoorn. “They took our best shot and finished us off at the end. We have to get better. We have to mature. We let their best shooter get loose for two shots and that changed the ballgame. We held him down for three and a half quarters. On defensive switch, he knocked two down. That was my fault. I had the wrong kids in the ballgame at that time. We didn’t cover him well. Our kids fought back and forth. We’ve got great heart, we’ve got great hustle, and we’ll be fine down the road. We’ll see them again.”
The Shorthorns didn’t waste any time getting to the basket from the opening tip-off as they retrieved the ball and scored a lay up within the first few seconds. Flatonia quickly answered back with crisp passing and a lay up of their own. Defensively, the Bulldogs went into a half-court trap and the Shorthorns went man-to-man. Flatonia ended up switching to a man-to-man and then a 2-3 zone in the last few minutes of the first as Schulenburg was finding the open man and scoring the ball
One of those scores included a fast-break from junior guard Kenny King as he went all alone to the basket and skied off his left foot for an easy one-handed jam. To cap off an impressive first quarter for the Horns, senior small-forward Jalen Wilson hit a double-clutch buzzer-beater from near the elbow to give his team a 17-5 advantage heading into the second quarter. Flatonia went into their full-court press, but it didn’t phase Schulenburg as they continued to force turnovers and execute in transition, going into the locker room with a 28-14 lead at halftime.
It seemed that Flatonia couldn’t gain any momentum on offense throughout the third until sophomore guard Keyshaun Green drew a bucket and a foul from a euro-step lay-up with his left hand to cut the Schulenburg lead to 35-23 at the end of three periods. The Bulldogs began their hot streak at around the sixminute mark when they cut the lead to 10 at 37-27 by hitting free throws. A couple possessions later, Kloesel hit his two big threes, one on a pass from Green all the way up court to the wing, making it a 38-33 contest with just under five minutes to play. Coming out of a timeout, Green then split the defense from just outside the perimeter and drove for a lay-up.
About 10 seconds later, Kloesel drew a foul and hit both free throws to climb to just a one point deficit at 38-37 with four minutes left. Kloesel followed that up with a baseline drive and a left-handed reverse lay-up to give the Bulldogs their first lead of the night and put the scoreboard at 39-38 with three and a half minutes to play. On the next possession, Schulenburg answered by going to the line and also making two free throws from senior point-guard Bryce Wilson to take the lead back at 40-39. While both teams went back and forth scoring throughout the final minutes, King drew a huge charge call on defense to give the Horns the ball with 53 seconds left in the game down one point at 45- 44.
Schulenburg decided to pass the ball around and run the clock down to 11 seconds before calling a timeout. They drew up a play for senior center Alex Lozano to shoot a three. Lozano bobbled the catch, but was still able to get the shot up as it grazed the front of the rim. King grabbed the offensive rebound and tossed up a floater from the baseline, which also came up short. Green for Flatonia grabbed the rebound, wrapped his arms around the ball, and was fouled with 4 seconds on the clock.
Bulldogs sophomore Dayton Cliffe was fouled immediately on the inbound and went to line where he missed the one and one free throw. The ball went out of bounds off of Flatonia, which gave Schulenburg the ball with 2.5 seconds left. Senior forward Brett Janecek launched a fullcourt heave to the other end of the court that was intercepted by Flatonia’s Green and was fouled with .4 seconds. Green missed a one-and one free throw that the Horns rebounded and quickly threw up a prayer from Flatonia’s end of the court that was unsuccessful as Flatonia closed out a barn-burner of a win with a final score of 45-44.
1/22/21
Flatonia boys 45, Schulenburg 44
Flatonia 5 9 9 22 – 45
Schulenburg 17 11 7 9 – 44
Flatonia scoring: Fidel Venegas 2, Keyshuan Green 6, Holden Kloesel 14, Luke Law 10, Collin Bosl 5, Hagan Wagner 8.
Schulenburg scoring: Kenny King 13, Bryce Wilson 18, Jalen Wilson 2, TJ Speed 2, Brett Janecek 1, Alex Lozano 8.