FIELD TWP — Woe to those in the crosshairs when the dominated becomes the dominator.
That’s a lesson Mesabi East learned the hard way last Thursday when the North Woods boys, sailing high after ending a 14-game losing streak with a pair of wins, laid a smackdown of epic proportions on the hapless Giants at North Woods last Friday, 88-32.
It’s been a rebuilding year for both squads, with North Woods Head Coach Jessica Trunnell savoring the Grizzlies’ recent success, and her team led this one from wire to wire.
Cedar Holman and Elias Sheffer powered a 13-0 opening salvo, and Caleb Rutchasky, Vincent Pascuzzi, and Andrew Hartway got into the scoring fray as the Grizzlies bolted to a 23-7 lead at the 10:07 mark. Another 15-0 run over the next three minutes left the Giants hopelessly in the dust at 38-7, and while the game evened out a bit the rest of the half, North Woods took a 48-19 lead into the locker room.
Blanking the Giants for long stretches was a repeating theme, as North Woods opened the second half with a 14-0 run that included a trey by Sawyer Glass as the Grizzlies expanded the rout to 62-19. There was little Mesabi East could do until Trunnel gave her bench more playing time, but even then, the North Woods reserves held their own, and if not for the mercy of the running clock, the Grizzlies were on pace to break a hundred. It wasn’t the highest offensive output of the season, but it was perhaps the most complete game from beginning to end that the young Grizzlies have played.
Holman had a monster outing, going 14-for-21 from the field and scoring 29 points.
“He’s an amazing player one-on-one against somebody,” Trunnell said. “I don’t know if that’s the excitement of trying to beat somebody or the pressure, but he loves it.”
Hartway also had one of his best games of the season, notching 21 points.
“We just had to settle in and things started flowing,” Trunnell said. “We spent a lot of time in practice prepping for how they do their press break, so my boys were very, very prepared.”
That showed in the stats, as North Woods had 23 steals and 26 deflections and scored 28 point off turnovers.
The Grizzlies are in the closing stretch of the regular season, with road games on tap at Littlefork-Big Falls, Chisholm, and Ely before wrapping things up with a home tilt against Deer River.