Mount Horeb boys basketball coach Todd Nesheim watched his team rally past Onalaska Saturday afternoon./File photo

Mount Horeb shocks Onalaska

Vikings rally in second half

Portraying it as a bleak outlook might be exaggerating a bit.

But not much.

It certainly wasn't a rosy picture for Mount Horeb’s boys basketball team with a minute to go in the first half Saturday afternoon against visiting Onalaska, the third-ranked team in Division 2 according to the Wissports.net coaches poll.

Trailing by 14, though, the Vikings found a sliver of hope: Back-to-back 3-pointers by freshman Josh Manchester, including one from NBA range at the buzzer, which trimmed the deficit to eight.

Like that, the mood changed.

“We just had a lot of good energy in there,” senior point guard Zach Peter said of the feeling in the locker room.

Good energy, and a good script to follow the rest of the way as it turns out, too.

“We said, ‘Let's win the first three minutes and see where that takes us,’ ” Vikings coach Todd Nesheim said of his message to the team to try and build on the momentum sustained before the break.

Not only did the Vikings win the first three minutes — they dominated them.

And they kept at it, handling Onalaska's relentless pressure, going nearly perfect at the free throw line over the final 10 minutes and ultimately turning away the Hilltoppers in an 84-77, non-conference victory.

The win lent promise to what the coaches have been saying throughout the offseason and first few weeks of the regular season.

“I think we've got the right pieces to be a good team. It was just a matter of belief,” Nesheim said. “The bottom line is they had to come out and do it — and they did it.”

Indeed, the Vikings (3-1) did — and in so doing, they gave themselves a big jolt headed into another tough game on Tuesday night against Stoughton, the No. 8 team in Division 2.

This victory over Onalaska (2-1) came on the heels of Friday night's 70-59 loss at Milton, unranked this week but No. 9 in the first poll of the year a week earlier.

“We knew this three-games-in-five-days stretch against all (good) teams was going to be a grind, it was going to be a test,” Nesheim said. “We think we're going to be a really good team, but you kind of felt like you needed to have a win or two in these three games to solidify that mindset. So we challenged them at halftime to respond and believe you can be there.”

Mission accomplished.  

Rocco Richie's contested 3-pointer from the left wing — one he created for himself with a series of ball fakes — capped an 11-4 run for Mount Horeb to open the second half, trimming Onalaska's (2-1) lead to 45-44 with 15:08 remaining in the game.

The early success out of the locker room had a lot to do with not getting rattled, Richie said.

“In the locker room we always get together before the coaches come in, and figure out what we need to do,” Richie said. “We had a game plan the whole time — the whole week — so we had to stick to that game plan and keep our composure.

“Last night (in a 70-59 loss to Milton), composure was not there, for sure. Tonight we stepped it up. We came back, we were thirsty and we were ready to go.”

Even after the 11-4 run, though, the Vikings still trailed.

Not for long.

A minute and a half later, with 13:23 to go, Peter broke Onalaska's press and found Richie open for a 3-pointer on the left wing that gave Mount Horeb a 49-48 lead.

The Vikings never trailed after that, although the game was tied at 53 after Onalaska’s 6-foot-5 junior Isaac Skemp's 26-footer with 11:33 left.

If sticking to the game plan was key to Mount Horeb's second-half success, as Richie said, then being patient and not pressing the issue was what made it work.

“It was about taking the shots we wanted to take. We were getting rushed a lot in the first half,” Peter said. “We calmed it down and took the shots that we usually hit in practice, and we hit them here in the game. It was fun.”

Peter did, however, make a couple highlight reel lay-ups — the kind that leave a coach cringing until they go through the net — during Mount Horeb's second-half surge to take the lead that surely weren't like the ones taken in practice.  

“I don't know how he does it, honestly,” Richie said.

Mount Horeb's biggest lead of the afternoon came after Peter hit a pair of free throws to make it 68-59 with 6:20 left.

Peter finished with 21 points, all but three of them coming in the second half and the last 11 of them at the free throw line, where he was 11-of-12 down the stretch.

Peter was equally as impressive handling the Hilltoppers pressure defense — their full-court press and half-court trap — in the second half, as Mount Horeb had just three turnovers in the final 18 minutes compared with nine in the first half.

“And that's the key for him,” Nesheim said. “We've had thousands of conversations about that being his next step as a senior — making sure he's taking care of the ball because of our shooters. Give us the looks.”

Nesheim gave Peter some help in doing so, though, pairing him with Manchester in the backcourt to give both a safety valve.  

“We knew we were going to eat eight or nine seconds of that clock to get it across just being patient connecting and having somebody to throw it backwards to if need be,” Nesheim said. “I watched tape on these guys and most of those teams left their point guard hanging — one vs. two and trying to throw it over the top.  Zach and Josh both did a really nice job of making sure that didn't happen.”

Like Peter, Manchester also had a big scoring night, finishing with 19 points — with nine in the first half and 10 in the second.

The 6-2 guard doesn't play much like a freshman.

“No he doesn't,” Richie said. “He plays like a senior.”

“That kid's different. That kid's so good,” added Peter.

Richie led Mount Horeb in scoring with 22 points, the last of them coming on a 3-pointer from the left corner that made it 66-57 with 8:12 remaining.

He didn't need to score after that thanks to the way Peter and Manchester converted at the free throw line. Manchester was 7-of-8 in the final 1:18 as Mount Horeb iced the victory.

But Mount Horeb's defense was also better in the second half than it was in the first, particularly against T.J. Stuttley, a 6-5 sophomore who according to WisSports.net has an NCAA Division I offer from Grambling State.

Stuttley had 13 points before halftime but was limited to eight in the second, all of those coming in the span of five minutes after Mount Horeb had gone in front.

Onalaska’s Evan Anderson, a 6-4 junior ranked as the 13th-best junior in the state according to WisSports.net, had 19 points.

Those two players were who Mount Horeb had circled as needing to control in order to pull off the upset.

“We just couldn't let them get to the rim,” said Nesheim, whose team did yield a pair of two-handed dunks — one on a breakaway and one in transition on a fastbreak — to Anderson in the first half. “We're a gap defense — we're Dick Bennett — so we pack it anyway. If those kids get to the lane, it just makes everything tougher.  So we really tried to overcommit on those two guys, keeping them out on the perimeter.”

It worked for the most part.

In fact, pretty much everything worked out for Mount Horeb in the second half.

“We were down 14 and things looked like they were going the wrong direction in a hurry,” Nesheim said. “And they responded, which they didn't do in the second half last night against Milton.

“They just kind of dug in. There was a lot of grit out there." 

• Milton 70, Mount Horeb 59 — Josh Manchester scored 20 points and Rocco Richie added 13, but it wasn’t enough for the Vikings on Dec. 9.

Mount Horeb led, 26-25, but Milton finished the half on a 9-3 run to take a 34-29 lead at the break.

Milton pushed that advantage to 55-44 midway through the second half, and the Vikings couldn’t make a run down the stretch.

“They were hungry after a tough week and knew they needed to win,” Nesheim said of Milton. “I thought it took us a bit to figure out the pace and intensity needed to win versus a top team. I was really pleased with our fight in the middle of the first half, but once we hit a double digit deficit in the second half, it was too much to overcome.”

 

MOUNT HOREB 84, ONALASKA 77

Onalaska ........... 41 36 -- 77

Mount Horeb .... 33 51 -- 84

ONALASKA — (fgm ftm-fta pts) — Isaac Skemp 4 0-0 12, T.J. Stuttley 8 5-7 21, Adam Skifton 2 0-0 6, Ian Kowal 2 0-0 6, Evan Anderson 8 2-3 19, Max Klein 1 0-0 2, Nick Odom 4 0-0 11. Totals: 29 7-10 77.

MOUNT HOREB — Josh Manchester 4 7-8 19, Nick Vorwald 2 0-0 4, Rocco Richie 8 0-0 22, Zach Maguire 2 0-0 5, Carter Lange 0 1-2 1, Zach Peter 4 11-12 21, Austin Leibfried 4 3-4 12. Totals: 24 22-26 84.

3-pointers: Onalaska 12 (Skemp 4, Skifton 2, Kowal 2, Anderson 1, Odom 4), Mount Horeb 14 (Manchester 4, Richie 6, Maguire 1, Peter 2, Leibfried 1). Total fouls: Onalaska 26, Mount Horeb 15. Fouled out: Odom.  

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