The eighth grade Howard Lake Waverly Winsted (HLWW) boys
traveling basketball team played in the tenth annual Elk River Tournament
on Jan. 2 – 3 and were crowned tournament champions.
In the first round, the Lakers played a small, but scrappy,
Irondale team. HLWW’s size and speed wore down their opponents and the Lakers
won 51-30 to advance to the semi-finals.
The Lakers played the Elk River Red team in semi-final
action. Elk River Red had beaten the Lakers in a previous meeting, but this
game belonged to HLWW.
At the half, the Lakers only led by 7, with a score of
20-13. In the third quarter, the Lakers flexed their offensive muscles,
scoring 22 points and increasing their lead to 42-21 by quarter’s end. Final
score of the game was 56-26 Lakers, earning the HLWW team a berth in the
championship game.
The Lakers were matched against Elk River White for the
championship. This would turn out to be a low-scoring game, due to both
teams playing excellent defense.
The Lakers trailed by one at half-time, 13-12, and after
three quarters of play, HLWW was behind 27-23. The Lakers finally managed
to tie the score at 31-31 with 32 seconds remaining in the game.
The Lakers forced an Elk River turnover and regained possession
of the basketball with 15 ticks left on the game clock. After a time out,
the Lakers scored on the ensuing out-of-bounds play and were clinging to
a 2-point lead with just 10 seconds to play.
Again, good defense forced yet another Elk River turnover
and the Lakers ran out the clock to preserve the win with a final score
of 33-31.
Leave a Reply