Wolverines win second straight Corner tournament title

East Mills used a 9-0 run late in the third quarter to pull away from Stanton and win its second straight Corner Conference Boys Basketball Tournament title with a 62-51 victory Saturday in Tabor.

After a rough-and-tumble first half that saw the two teams commit 19 fouls and the Wolverines (12-1) take a slim 36-33 halftime adjustments by both teams came up big in the third quarter.

Stanton came out of the break attacking the paint and going on an 8-5 run to take their first lead since the first quarter at 41-40. But East Mills would answer.

A 9-0 run, punctuated by a pair of offensive putbacks by Layne Mastin, put East Mills back in front 49-41 with just over two minutes to go in the third quarter.

East Mills coach Kevin Schafer wasn’t pleased with his team’s first half, but he did feel they got better on both ends of the court as the game went on.

“We kept talking about too many straight-line drives,” Schafer said of his team’s first half. “We weren’t forcing them to go at an angle. The other thing was our communication on the pick and rolls wasn’t very good. We ended up double teaming the ball and giving up the roll.”

Schafer chalked some of those breakdowns to his team being little amped up, the gym being a little louder, and communication mistakes.

In the third quarter, the Wolverines closed those gaps. From the 2:39 mark of the third quarter until 2:17 remained in the game, they allowed just two Viking field goals while extending their lead to double digits. Senior guard Zach Thornburg came up big in the final six minutes of the game, hitting his first three pointer of the season and then a runner to give his team a 58-47 lead with two minutes to go.

“His confidence has been coming around in practice,” Schafer said of Thornburg. “In junior high I think he was the main scorer on the team. He was the one out of the bunch that got to play varsity as a freshman. He’s had some issues shooting and you can see the evidence in practice he’s starting to shoot more and the confidence coming back. That’s going to make us a more dangerous team.”

The Wolverines didn’t shoot it great as a team – 42.9 percent – but they more than compensated for that in other ways. They had 14 assists on 24 made field goals, they grabbed 13 offensive rebounds, they turned it over just eight times and they had four players score in double figures, led by Layne Mastin’s 16 points. Thornburg added 15 points, Lincoln Palmer 12 and Jackson Embree 11.

The Corner title is Schafer’s seventh as a head coach – five at East Mills, two at Nishna Valley –

“This is our sixth year in a row that we’ve been in the (championship) game,” Schafer said of his team, that had lost four straight title games prior to last season. The first year we were happy to be there. The other team was quite a bit better than us. Three years in a row there was a lot of heartache and we kind of took it out last year. I was so happy for these kids to have their chance. Again, they played last year but they weren’t the heart and soul of the team. Now they are and they get to enjoy the fruits of their labor.”

Evan Gettler led Stanton with 16 points. Logan French added 14.

East Mills 51,
Fremont-Mills 21
East Mills picked up its third victory in as many tries over Fremont-Mills this season and advanced to the Corner Conference boys tournament championship game with a 51-21 victory over the Knights Friday in Malvern.
    The Wolverines grabbed 14 steals and limited F-M to nine first half points in the win.
Jackson Embree scored 19 points and Kyler Williams added 12 points and four steals to lead East Mills.
Sawyer Forney scored six points to lead Fremont-Mills.

Fremont-Mills 55,
Griswold 45
    A balanced scoring effort helped Fremont-Mills to a 55-45 win over Griswold in Corner Conference Boys Basketball Tournament opening round play last Tuesday.
The Knights’ Sawyer Forney, Luke Madison, Anders Langille and Logan Jahnke scored nine points each.
Bode Wyman led Griswold with 14 points. Peyton Cook added 13 and Hogan Hook 11.