REGIONAL- In a battle of beasts, only one wild animal ruled the court on Saturday as the Cherry Tigers stalked, swarmed, and shredded the North Woods Grizzlies, turning their Section 7A playoff game at Esko into a 104-40 ferocious feast.
With the Tigers averaging 100 points per game over their last eight games and topping North Woods by 50 in January, the Grizzlies knew they had to play a perfect game on both ends of the floor to have a hope of keeping up with the defending state champs. But knowing and doing aren’t the same thing when talent, size, and speed are stacked against you, and the Grizzlies found out quickly why Cherry is the odds on favorite to repeat this year.
The Tigers worked the ball inside early as they built a 12-3 lead, the Grizzlies’ lone basket coming on a Louie Panichi trey. After a Grizzlies time out the Tigers connected on a trey and revved up their running game, bolting to a 19-3 edge before Talen Jarshaw broke the string with a free throw. Aidan Hartway and Trajen Barto drained buckets and Panichi drained a charity to get the Grizzlies to within 14 at 23-9 at the 9:34 mark, the closest they would get to the Tigers the rest of the game. The Tigers kicked it into gear from there, closing out the half on a 47-9 run to take an insurmountable 70-18 lead at the break.
The pace slowed down in the second half as both benches saw liberal playing time, with Cherry coasting into the sectional semifinals against Cromwell-Wright.
A pair of Grizzlies’ seniors led the way in scoring for North Woods. Louie Panichi scored 16, and John Carlson, who started the game after coming off the bench this season, dropped in 10.
The scenario was a much better one for the Grizzlies in the tourney opener last week, as eighth-seeded North Woods got the opportunity to play one more home game against No. 9 Northland.
The Eagles won the regular season contest over North Woods, also on the Grizzlies home court, and Northland rode the confidence from that win to an early 16-5 advantage. But a deep three from the corner by Jarshaw brought the Grizzlies out of hibernation, and a deuce and a charity by Aidan Hartway capped a 15-2 run as North Woods took a 20-18 lead.
The Grizzlies kept the heat on, taking their first double-digit lead of the night at 29-19 on a Trajen Barto bucket, and pushed the lead to 13 at the break, 44-31.
The second half was all about maintaining that lead against the dangerous Eagles, who closed the gap to just five at 52-47 with 13 minutes remaining to complete the comeback. But TaySean Boshey-Wilkerson broke free under the basket for a score, and Scott Morrison followed up with a basket down low to right the Grizzlies ship, and they pushed the lead back up to 67-52 at the 10:23 mark on a bucket by Hartway. The Eagles made another push to get back within single digits at 69-61, and they were still within eight with under six minutes to play, but they would get no closer. Panichi punctuated a big North Woods surge with a steal and fast break score to put the Grizzlies up 86-68 with 3:30 to play, and North Woods breezed home from there to claim an 88-74 win.
The Grizzlies took advantage of an off-night shooting for the Eagles, who hit only 32 percent of their shots, while the Grizz-lies scorched the net by making 49 percent of their opportunities. The Grizz-lies were also stellar from the free throw line, hitting 14 of 18 attempts.
North Woods had five players score in double figures for the night, led by 23 from Panichi. Jarshaw scored 19, Morrison had a breakout game with 14, Hartway scored 12 and Kalvyn Benner tallied ten.
Grizzlies Head Coach Andrew Jugovich was pleased to see Morrison’s hard work pay off with a good outing.
“Ever since the middle of the season he’s put in a lot of work on (junior varsity), and seeing how he attacks on JV when we have a low block position open, I knew he was capable of it, and tonight he really took full advantage of it.”
Jugovich switched up defenses for the game, playing a zone instead of the team’s preferred man-to-man, and the strategy paid off.
“I’ll give the boys credit – they don’t play zone often, but against a team like that we had to go zone and it worked out pretty well,” Jugovich said.