February 5, 2018 at 2:35 p.m.
White drops 35 on Eagles in 79-56 win
White drops 35 on Eagles in 79-56 win
The Hodag senior poured in a game-high 35 points, and added 12 rebounds, as Rhinelander overcame some first half woes to cruise past the Eagles 79-56 at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium.
The Eagles were within two points with just over three minutes to play in the opening half, but White scored the final 10 points of his 22-point first-half effort in a closing 14-7 run and the Hodags pulled away for good early in the second half.
"Owen White really just played an outstanding game," Hodag coach Derek Lemmens said. "That allowed us to keep our distance. Then, finally, we pulled away. A lot of other guys had trouble finding the basket."
White finished 12 of 23 from the floor, including 5 of 8 from 3-point range, on a night when the team shot less than 37 percent overall.
"It was passing. It was rebounding. It was defending. It was shooting. He showed his entire arsenal tonight and it was great to see," Lemmens said. "That's the thing with a player like that. When our game isn't going, we need a guy to step up like that, and he did."
The Eagles (5-11, 1-8 Great Northern) never led in the contest, but made things a little too close for comfort thanks to an 8-2 run that cut Rhinelander's lead to 23-21 with 3:19 left in the first.
"We were really stale," Lemmens said. "We didn't have good energy. We're on our home floor, we have to have good energy. We didn't have that in the first half."
The lead increased to six in a flash as Brad Quade made a pair of free throws and then stole the ball and pushed it ahead to White for an easy layup. White hit a pair of 3s and made a couple of frees throws down the stretch as the Hodags took a 37-28 lead to halftime.
Rhinelander put the game away over the first nine minutes of the second half thanks to a 22-6 run. The lead ballooned to 30 as White put an exclamation point on the night with a steal at half court that led to a left-handed dunk in transition with 4:20 remaining.
Ryan Peterson, Northland Pines' leading scorer at 17.4 points per game, was held to 10 by the Hodags before fouling out with just over six minutes to play. Forward Jack Hayes led Pines with 14 points as the Eagles shot 49 percent from the field (21 of 43).
"It's an uneasy feeling to know we're still not defending well consistently yet," Lemmens said. "Teams are not just beating our press, they're getting layups. There's a lot of things we need to clean up. We're not making the right decisions on our reads and that's something maybe a lot of film is going to cure. We're going to have to talk about it as a team because it's happening consistently enough. We want our pressure to dictate tempo, not give them free opportunities."
Brad Comer added nine points for Rhinelander. Junior Howard and Reese Flores each chipped in seven as the Hodags had 10 players score in the contest. Rhinelander was only 8 of 31 from 3-point range following a 16-of-27 effort in a win Tuesday against Wausau East.
"I'm obviously back, because our shooting woes came back," Lemmens quipped, referencing his absence from Tuesday's game after he and his wife, Jenni, welcomed their second child that morning. The Hodags will put their 15-game winning streak on the line tonight in a non-conference game against Merrill with major seeding implications. "This is a very big game," Lemmens said. "It's just one of those where we need to get the W so we can sit back in the seeding meeting and know we're ahead of all these teams we are beating. That's important."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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