By Brenda Erdahl
Sports Editor
The Maple Lake boys basketball team ended a 68-game losing streak, Friday, Jan. 26 at home by defeating Chesterton Academy of the Twin Cities 75-57. It was the first win for anyone in the program including Head Coach Bryan Schleif.
“It felt really good to finally get one . . . the fans were in this game and I’m really happy we did it at home,” Coach Schleif said.
The Irish matched their season high score in a half, 39, which they set just three days earlier, and saw four ball players score in the double digits.
“We have been improving all season and we knew we were capable of (winning),” Schleif said.
The win against Chesterton was one of three games the Irish played last week. The first, on Tuesday, Jan. 23 resulted in a 96-66 loss to Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa and on Saturday, Jan. 27, the Irish fell to Nova Classical Academy 57-31.
Maple Lake 66, BBE 96
The Irish saw some good things happening against BBE. Maple Lake produced its highest scoring half in two years with 39 points and had the fewest turnovers, 10.
“Although the outcome was not as expected we played really good basketball well into the second half. We shot well from the field and played good defense against a really good opponent. We definitely have struggled with BBE in the past with scoring margins of 50 and 70 respectively last year, so to come out in the first half and have a 54-39 game was exciting.”
Pablo Marzaredo led scoring with 21 points. He also had six assists. Bowen Walton scored 18 points.
“Having two guys that can score consistently has been great this year,” Schleif said.
Maple Lake 75, Chesterton 57
The Irish were looking forward to facing Chesterton, but Coach Schleif felt they still started out a little slow. He attributed it to nerves, knowing they had a real chance of winning. Despite the nerves, the Irish managed to take a 39-24 lead going into half time. In the second half, Maple Lake scored 36 points to Chesterton’s 33 to win by a comfortable margin.
Bowen Walton led scoring for the Irish with 25 points. As a team they shot 41% which is a season high. In fact, the Irish led in almost all statistical categories, Friday night.
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