Fox Valley Lutheran boys basketball notches 20th win with home victory over Little Chute
By Dustin Riese
For AppletonSportsPage.com
APPLETON – The Fox Valley Lutheran boys basketball team has been on quite a run. Entering Friday’s contest against Little Chute Mustangs, the Foxes had already locked up their third consecutive North Eastern Conference crown, but had other goals in mind.
Hoping to run the table in conference play, the Foxes once again were tested by the Mustangs and got everything they could handle and more for most of the contest. Leave it to Adam Loberger and his game-high 26 points to make the biggest difference as he put the Foxes on his back multiple times to lead them to another 75-62 victory.
FVL is now 20-2 and a perfect 17-0 in the NEC, while Little Chute drops to 12-11, 10-7 in conference play.
“We had a big win against Freedom to secure the championship on Tuesday so it’s always tough to come out after a big win like that,” Fox Valley Lutheran head coach Jay Wendland said. “Little Chute is a great team and we knew coming in after seeing them six days ago that they would be scrappy. They are always going to give you a battle and never give up, which we saw for the second time in six days, but our kids were able to get the job done.”
It’s very unusual to see the same opponent twice within a seven-day period, let alone beat that same team, but that is what the Foxes were up against after taking down the Mustangs last Saturday on the road. Grant Hermus and Cooper Effa started things off with five-straight points as the Mustangs grabbed an early 5-0 lead. Effa and Hermus had the hot hands early as they scored the first 12 points of the night for Little Chute, while Hermus led the way for the Mustangs with 20 points and Effa adding 16 in the game.
All it took for the Foxes’ offense to get rolling was a Loberger bucket as he responded with five of his game-high 26 points to tie things up 5-5 before the sharp-shooting Sam Ferge connected on a triple to put the Foxes in front 8-7. Ferge would finish with 16 points, but it was a struggle at times as this wasn’t one of his better overall shooting nights.
The Mustangs continued to battle back only to have Loberger pick up five more points to put the Foxes in front 13-10.
It was at that moment of the game when the Foxes were on the verge of breaking things open as they used an 11-4 run and opened up a 24-14 lead. Ironically, Loberger wasn’t part of that run, but instead it was Trenton Heyn, who scored six of his 10 points during that run. Following a timeout by Little Chute, the Mustangs came out swinging as Dayton Magnussen connected for five points with Reece Joten and Effa also getting involved as the Mustangs used a 10-0 run to even things up 24-24.
The remainder of the first half was filled with back-and-forth action as Nolan Jakubek started to get involved for the Mustangs, while Ferge and Liam Heiges added some late half offense for the Foxes who took a 35-32 lead into the locker room. Loberger had a massive 15-point first half, but it was the overall balanced scoring that had Wendland happy.
“Our team has really evolved over the last month as we continue to have different kids step up each game,” he said. “We have seen a number of different defenses thrown our way that require us to have other kids step up. It was cool to see that once again tonight for us in front of the home fans.”
Sitting in a similar position to their previous meeting with the Mustangs, it was more of the same for the Foxes in the second half as Heiges and Heyn had four quick points to extend the lead to 39-32. Once again, the Mustangs had an answer with Jacob Verhagen connecting on a 3-pointer to keep Little Chute within 39-35.
Suddenly, the Foxes started to create some distance as Lucas Papendorf took his turn with the hot hand.
Papendorf isn’t known for his scoring, but with 14 points and seven coming in a three-minute stretch during the second half, he gave the Foxes four players in double figures and helped them open up their largest lead of the game up to that point 56-44. That lead only continued to grow as the Foxes pushed it up to 65-48.
Needing offense in a hurry, Little Chute went back to what worked in the first half with Effa and Hermus helping to lead the comeback. Jakubek and Magnussen also got involved as the Mustangs tried to get things back into single digits late. Hermus did pull Little Chute to within 10, but that wouldn’t be enough as the Foxes finished off the victory.
With two games remaining in the regular season and the playoffs right around the corner, FVL will learn their fate this coming weekend during the seeding meetings. Expected to land a good seed, FVL is hoping for a deep playoff run, but hasn’t set a goal as to what they want to accomplish the rest of the way.
“The only thing I’m about with this team right now is to get through that first playoff game,” Wendland said. “After that, let’s see what can happen and see how far we can take this thing. I don’t know if there is a destination we need to reach to feel satisfied because this is more about the journey and the process of getting to where we need to get to.”
Fox valley Lutheran will play a nonconference game at Green Bay Notre Dame on Tuesday before finishing its regular-season schedule with an NEC contest at Luxemburg-Casco on Thursday.
The WIAA postseason brackets will be announced on Sunday.
Foxes 75, Mustangs 62
Little Chute 32 30 – 62
Fox Valley Lutheran 35 40 – 75
LITTLE CHUTE (62): Charlie VandenBurgt 2, Rahshad Manns 4, Grant Hermus 20, Jacob Verhagen 5, Cooper Effa 13, Nolan Jakubek 9, Deyten Magnussen 7, Reece Joten 2. Record: 12-11, 10-7 North Eastern Conference.
FOX VALLEY LUTHERAN (75): Adam Loberger 26, Sam Frege 16, Lucas Papendorf 14, Trenton Heyn 10, Liam Heiges 6, Graham Feidt 3. Record: 20-2, 17-0 North Eastern Conference.