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Hale’s second half comeback stuns Vikings

Courtesy Photo/Ben Murphy Posen’s Chase Dubie knocks down a three pointer in the second half of Monday’s home loss to Hale.

POSEN — With a chance to seal the North Star League Little Dipper title at home Monday, things were looking pretty good early on for the Posen boys basketball team.

Visiting Hale rallied from a 15-point halftime deficit however, and the Eagles hit two free throws in the contest’s final seconds to stun the Vikings, 59-58 in a thrilling match-up that featured the top two teams in the Little Dipper.

“That was frustrating, we didn’t execute and we did some bonehead things at the end of the game,” Posen coach Chris Keller said. “We were up four with less than a minute to go and make a silly foul down there and then another one and the kid hits some big free throws and we had a costly jump ball that turned into a turnover at half court and that pretty much sums up the game. We have to be able to execute in these tight situations when tournament time comes and we didn’t do that tonight.”

The Eagles (8-1 overall, 8-1 NSL Little Dipper) stormed all the way back from the big early deficit to take a 53-52 lead on a David Wanty three pointer with about two minutes remaining. The Vikings (9-3 overall, 8-1 NSL Little Dipper) regrouped and looked like they was going to avoid the upset, when AJ Brunet netted a lay-up for a 56-53 lead. A pair of free throws by Chase Dubie extended that margin to 58-54 with 34 seconds left.

The Eagles cashed in on an and-one play on the other end to pull within 58-57, and after an errant Posen pass turned into a loose ball, players from each team jumped on it, forcing a jump ball with the passion arrow in Hale’s favor.

Moments later, Wanty was fouled on a drive through the lane and cashed in on both free throws for a 59-58 lead with 11 seconds left. Out of a timeout, Posen managed a three point attempt with just seconds remaining, but the shot was off the mark and time expired before the Vikings managed a put-back attempt.

“That was anybody’s game, we had some pretty tough errors with under a minute to go,” Keller said. “Hopefully we can learn from it so that we don’t do them again early on.”

The Vikings spent much of the first half building on to their lead. An early lay-in by Lucas Stone put them ahead 7-2, with Stone also ending the quarter by getting a quick catch-and-shoot attempt to fall through at the opening quarter buzzer, for a 13-9 lead.

Three pointers by Ethan Soik and Cole Krajniak extended that to lead to 19-12, with Krajniak later adding another to make it 24-12.

Late in the half, Soik delivered a perfect pass to a cutting Stone, who dropped the ball in for an easy two points and 32-15, though Hale netted the final basket of the half to make it 32-17 at the break.

“The first half, I really wasn’t happy with our overall offense, but shots were falling and things seemed to be working out,” Keller said.” What is unfortunate is in the first half, our offense was working good but we didn’t rebound terribly great while in the second half, we rebounded well but our offense went away. They ran the triangle-and-two on two of our main scorers, and that is what it is but we need to be able to adapt better than that. I thought we did in a couple timeouts, but apparently we didn’t convey that well enough.”

Hale whittled the Posen lead to 46-39 after the third quarter and 46-44 early in the fourth, but a pair of threes by Dubie kept the Vikings ahead 49-44 and 52-47.

Hale answered with a quick six point spurt, capped by Wanty’s three pointer to set up the late stages of the game.

Dubie led the Vikings with 17 points, Stone finished with 13, Krajniak and Brunet added 10 points apiece, Joey Konieczny put in five and Soik netted three.

All is not lost for the Vikings however, as they can still clinch at least a share of the Little Dipper with Hale, and depending on conference tiebreakers, win it out right if they claim a victory at Atlanta on Wednesday.

“In basketball, you have to have a short memory,” Keller said. “A win in Atlanta still wins us the league, so obviously that is going to be the goal.”

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