Gold Brick goes to Wolves
The Gold Brick belongs to the Ely Timberwolves.Revived after a hiatus of more than 50 years, the traveling trophy is in Ely’s possession - at least until a January matchup with Babbitt-Embarrass -after a 64-57 high school boys basketball victory Tuesday at Tower-Soudan.Senior Eric McDonald sparked the Wolves, scoring 19 of his game-high 33 points in the second half, bringing Ely back from a five-point halftime deficit.And perhaps more importantly for the Wolves, they bounced back well from a pair of lopsided losses, including a surprising 90-64 loss to Cotton last Friday.“We were coming off two blowouts in a row, with Cotton and Virginia, and we didn’t want to dig ourselves too big of a hole here,” said Ely Head Coach Tom McDonald. And while Eric McDonald’s offensive output fueled the fire, the Wolves improved on defense and got the rest of their starters involved in the offensive flow.“I think everybody was involved all night,” said Tom McDonald. “All five starters were active and contributed. Defensively we played well all night, and in the second half our offense started to click.Eight different Golden Eagles scored in the opening half and Jesse Quick had 11 points as T-S led 31-26 at the break.But the Wolves forced turnovers early in the second half and Eric McDonald scored both on drives to the hoop and from long range.Ely took the lead early in the half and opened it up into double digits midway through.The Golden Eagles’ late rally, sparked by three three-pointers from Zach Schroeder fell well short.Senior Nick Furnstahl scored 10 points, seven in the second half, for the Wolves, while Lekatz added nine points.The unsung hero was senior Ryan Bagnal, who had a career-high 13 rebounds to go with his four points.“We needed that,” said Tom McDonald. “We’re not very big or strong inside so we needed that to him.”The Wolves also took better care of the ball, winding up with 11 turnovers. Rounding out the scoring chart were Steve Milkovich and Ben Povhe, who had four points each.Quick had 19 points and Schroeder finished with 18 for the Golden Eagles (2-1).Cotton 90, Ely 64The Cardinals’ Ian Williams torched the Wolves, scoring a career-best 42 points as visiting Cotton pulled away in the final minutes.Cotton took charge of a seesaw battle late in the first half, opening up an eight-point lead and extending the gap to double digits in the second half.Eric McDonald had 35 points for Ely and helped bring the Wolves back to within eight, at 62-54, with 6:40 to go.That’s when Williams went off, hitting five straight shots at one point. He hit from mid-range, on drives to the basket, off of steals and even from long distance, although he had just two three-pointers in the game.“I couldn’t believe how well he shot,” said Tom McDonald. “They’ve got a real nice team. I knew they were going to be good, but they were better than I thought.”Jake Williams hit five three-pointers and added 21 points for Cotton, and ninth-grade center Kenny Schofield held his own inside, where Cotton out-rebounded the Wolves 38-20.
