By Fred Kroner
Three games into the boys’ basketball season, the Mahomet-Seymour team had a 1-2 overall record, but was five points away from a 3-0 start.
In Game 4 on Saturday (Nov.27), the Bulldogs and Belleville Althoff were locked in a 42-42 tie entering the final quarter.
This time, there would be no close calls down the stretch. M-S outpointed the Crusaders 22-8 to capture a 64-50 win in the seventh-place game of the Lincoln Railsplitter Thanksgiving Tournament.
Blake Wolters finished 4-for-4 for the week in leading the team in scoring, hitting 17 points.
He had plenty of support. Wyatt Bohm – who started his day in DeKalb to get recognized as a Class 5A football all-stater – came off the bench to score 15 points on 6-for-7 accuracy from the field. Two of Bohm’s shots were from three-point range.
Dayten Eisenmann and Jake Waldinger each contributed eight points.
Bohm finished with a game-high six assists.
Also, for the fourth game in a row, Wolters was the team’s top rebounder. He grabbed seven against Althoff to finish the week with 85 points and 32 rebounds. Wolters was the lone Bulldog chosen for the 10-player all-tournament team.
“We won behind a stellar team effort and bounced back after a frustrating overtime loss on Friday night,” M-S coach Ryan Bosch said. “We had great contributions from our second unit, especially early as we found ourselves in an early double-digit hole to start the game.
“We were able to claw back to a one-possession game at halftime. We eventually opened up a margin in the fourth quarter.”
For much of the week, M-S was playing short-handed. The team’s tallest player, 6-foot-9 Luke Koller, was injured in the season-opener and missed the next three games.
Another early-season contributor, Byron Lynch, has been battling an injury and illness and only made appearances in the first two games.
“We are looking forward to healing up, getting to get all of our players for our first practice with every member participating and excited to start conference play (on Thursday, Dec. 2, at home against Mattoon),” Bosch added.
On Friday (Nov. 26) – for the second time in five days – the Bulldogs played an overtime game in the Lincoln Thanksgiving Tournament, but this time, M-S didn’t get the result it wanted.
M-S dropped a 68-64 decision to Springfield Sacred-Heart Griffin. The Bulldogs needed a 26-18 fourth-quarter run to force the extra four-minute session.
Wolters hit a game-high 13 points and also led the team with five assists. Eisenmann added 11 points while Quenton Rogers contributed 10 points (including 8-for-10 from the free throw line) and Carter Selk made a season-high 10 points. Bohm finished with nine points.
Rogers had four assists. Wolters led in rebounding with nine.
“We found ourselves down double digits in the third quarter and found ourselves in the lead late, and unable to close,” Bosch said. “We ended up running out of gas and lost in what was our fourth overtime of the week.”
In Monday’s season-opener, the Bulldogs and Centennial battled through three OTs before M-S prevailed.
Against Sacred Heart-Griffin, there were four ties and seven lead changes. M-S trailed, 18-11, after one quarter.
M-S (2-2) returns to action on Thursday (Dec. 2) at home against Mattoon in its Apollo Conference opener.
