By Travis Smola
Nail-biting finishers seemed to be a signature of the Vicksburg boys’ basketball team this year. So it wasn’t surprising when the year’s final game against Battle Creek Pennfield in District play was no different.
The Bulldogs and Panthers traded the lead back and forth throughout the contest. Whenever it looked like Pennfield would pull away, Vicksburg came charging back. After the first quarter, Vicksburg had a 16-15 lead that shifted to a 33-30 deficit at the half. Throughout the night, the Bulldogs did an excellent job of spreading the ball around.
Mitchell Beyer was on fire throughout the game, scoring 24 points, 15 from three-pointers. Andrew Gless was the next leading scorer with 11 points. Jaxson Wilson had nine points and Jordan Diekman had seven.
Carter Brown and Gabriel Ryder each added six, while Grant Balazs added a three-pointer to round out the scoring.
As the third quarter ended, the Bulldogs were down by 14 points, and the game looked like it was over. However, the team never gave up and came battling back in the final quarter.
“That’s kind of the resolve we’ve had all year,” Head Coach Zach Wierenga said. “We haven’t really counted ourselves out in any game. We’ve won several close games this year. We knew we had to believe we could do it. We had a good look at the end, and it just didn’t go in.”
Vicksburg managed to cut the lead to six points with just over 4:30 remaining in the contest. Pennfield didn’t miss many shots in the home stretch, which meant that the lead was still with 1:30 left in the game. That’s when Beyer sank a huge three-pointer to cut the lead to 73-71 with just 56 seconds left.
After the Panthers made a successful free throw, the Bulldogs made it 74-73 after Marchese rebounded his own missed shot and made good on the second chance opportunity. Pennfield made another free throw to make it 75-73, and Vicksburg had about 18 seconds left to tie things up.
The Panthers took a strategic timeout and then successfully defended the Bulldogs’ last-chance shot opportunity as time expired. Wierenga said the look they wanted was there, the shot just didn’t make it.
“We expected that with the timeout we called, and we kind of had what we wanted regardless of what the time was,” Wierenga said. “They play good defense, good for them. The last time we played them, we made the shot, we got the stop. So, that kind of happened to us tonight.”
Vicksburg ends the season with an 11-13 record. The good news is that the Bulldogs are only graduating five seniors. Most of their playmakers will return for the 2024-2025 campaign.
