Cardinals fall to Hartington in regular season finale
Alan Dale
HARTINGTON — The Randolph Cardinal boys basketball team (7-14) wrapped up the regular season under less-than-ideal circumstances Friday.
Ironically, the team they played and lost to, 77-47, Friday - the Hartington-Newcastle Wildcats - would be the team they would match wits against in Monday’s SubDistrict play-in game as both teams hoped to advance to a semifinal game at Laurel.
HNS won that game, 50-40, ending the season for Randolph. A recap of that game and of the 20-21 season will be printed in next week’s Times.
After Friday’s loss, Randolph head coach Jim Hixson said his team still has work to do.
‘We will need to shore up our defense and eliminate our turnovers to make a run at them,” Hixson said. ‘We are hopeful that we will have Justin Haselhorst back - he is the facilitator of our offense. If we shore up our defense and they cool off shooting I am confident we can have a better showing.”
The earlier contest with the Wildcats saw the Cardinals paced by Tristan Mosel (11 points) and Collyn Beal (10 points) as Haselhorst (nine points) could not finish the game.
‘We ran into a buzzsaw,” Hixson said. “Harlington shot 60 percent from the field and 47 percent from behind the three-point arc. We lost our senior point guard Justin late in the first half to a dislocated shoulder. They were able to make a run late in the half without us having Justin on the floor and we were never able to recover.”
Hartington-Newcastle scored 41 points in the first half - which included a 25-point outburst in the opening eight minutes to take a 41-27 halftime advantage that the Cardinals could not overcome. Starter Tom known for
Starter Tom Korth, known for his rebounding and defensivework, said that in order to go anywhere, the Cardinals would need to play better defense.
It didn’t help that shots weren’t falling against the Wildcats.
‘We got to bounce back as a team,” Korth said. “We have to show up and have energy and believe that you can win.
“Besides this loss, we have been going uphill and doing bet ter and better.”
Korth spoke on behalf of the season to date and said that the key to the turnaround was better protection of the ball and then shots started to fall at a better clip.
It took time for a group that overall didn’t get much run the previous year.
‘We had a lot of people in our community that thought we were going to be pretty bad this season and the beginning they were kind of right,” Korth said. “But we’ve bounced back and started picking it up.”
Randolph 12 15 9 11 — 47 —
— Hartington-Newcstl 16 25 17 19 — 77
HNS Randolph
FG 21-33 12-23
3PT 8-19 4-15
3PT 8-19 4-15 FT 11-18 11-17
Reb 27 28 TOs 8 20
TOs 8 20
SCORING HNS - Kobe Heitman, 22; Jake Peitz, 17; Isaac Bruning, 10; Riley Sudbeck, 7; Turner Dendinger, 7; Bennet Sievers, 6; Seth Pinkelman, 4; Reece Morten, 2; Dayton Sudbeck, 2. Randolph -Tristan Mosel, 11; Collyn Beal, 10; Justin Haselhorst, 9; Tom Korth, 5; Jacob Calder, 4; Tyson Junck, 4; Jake Harder, 2; Isaiah Salmon, 2.
REBOUNDS HNS - Kobe Heitman, 10; Jake Peitz, 7; Bennett Sievers, 3; Riley Sudbeck, 3; Turner Dendinger, 2; Isaac Bruning, 1; Reece Morten, 1. Randolph Collyn Beal, 6; Tristan Mosel, 6; Sam Korth, 6; Justin Haselhorst, 3; Jacob Calder, 2; Jake Harder, 2; Tyson Junck, 1; Tom Korth, 1; Isaiah Salmon, 1. -
ASSISTS HNS - Isaac Bruning, 5; Kobe Heitman, 5; Bennett Sievers, 4; Lane Heimes, 2; Jake Peitz, 2; Riley Sudbeck, 1. Randolph - Tristan Mosel, 3; Justin Haselhorst, 3; Tom Korth, 2; Sam Korth, 1; Tyson Junck. 1; Jacob Calder, 1. -
STEALS HNS - Kobe Heitman, 5; Jake Peitz, 3; Bennett Sievers, 2; Dayton Sudbeck, 2; Isacc Bruning, 1; Riley Sudbeck, 1; Seth Pinkelman, 1. Randolph - Justin Haselhorst, 2; Tristan Mosel, 1; Jacob Calder, 1.
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