2/21/17: @Mora

Varsity: W (61-51)

JV: W (57-35)

C-Squad: L (52-40)

Pine City Pioneer, Jesse Logan

Meeting some unique challenges this past week, the Pine City boys basketball team earned three more wins to move their overall record to 19-6 with one game remaining. The Dragons won two games without head coach Kyle Allen (family reasons), earning impressive road wins on back-to-back days despite playing twice in a 20-hour period. Pine City began the week with an important Section 7AA win over rival Mora. 

Pine City 61, Mora 51

After being swept in two games by the Mustangs a year ago, the Dragons exacted a little revenge in this contest, which was tight throughout. Pine City shot the ball well to begin the contest, and seemed to use their depth to wear the Mustangs down late before sealing a big win.

“Really gritty game,” said coach Allen. “A game where we came out and tried hard to run a lot of boys at them. We had success utilizing our bench, and using a lot of guys in the game made a difference. Nick Hansmann had a really nice game, continues to do a lot of good things for us, shot the ball well again. Jake Rademacher again leading us in rebounds and leading us in assists, and Clay Logan played a little bit under the weather but played some big minutes for us and responded really well. Quinten Miklya and Jake Lunceford did a great job with the task of stopping Cal Wright from Mora, a phenomenal player; those guys responded well.”

Hansmann was hot to start the game, hitting six three pointers in the first half, but cooled as the game went on, finishing with 18. Logan had 10 points, six rebounds and three assists. Rademacher had seven points and seven boards. Seth Logan finished with nine points and Jake Adams had eight as each hit a pair of big shots at crucial moments. Mora ended Pine City’s season a year ago, and current thinking has the two headed for a rematch in an opening round collision in the Section 7AA playoffs on March 9.

Pine City would travel to Duluth on Friday, Feb. 24 to play a pair of games in less than 24 hours. The squad would be without their head coach, and would be led to back-to-back victories by experienced JV coach Jason Rademacher.

“The team headed to Duluth Marshall and Two Harbors on an overnight road trip,” said coach Allen, “and unfortunately I wasn’t able to accompany the team. But I was thankful and proud of our boys with how they responded. I’m blessed to have great assistant coaches in coach (Wayne) Hansmann and coach Rademacher. I really wasn’t worried at all. They do such a nice job with the boys.”