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McDonald joins 1,000-point club

Eric McDonald passed a career scoring milestone but the Timberwolves were tripped up last week by Cherry.On a night when the Ely senior scored his 1,000th career point, the Tigers shut down the rest of the Wolves and pulled out a 66-58 Arrowhead Conference boys basketball win.Ely (7-4) bounced back quickly from the Jan. 13 loss and hammered an overmatched Maranatha Academy squad 93-54 the following day.In his last five games, McDonald has been held under 35 points just once - and that was a 28-point effort against Cherry - and the senior sharpshooter has been deadly both from long-distance and at the free throw line.He scored his 1,000th career point late in the Cherry game, and by making 29 straight free throws, a run that ended the contest before, he shattered the previous record set by his former teammate - 2005 graduate Tim Scott (24).But Cherry (5-5) held McDonald a bit under his recent scoring average and limited the Wolves to six three-point baskets.Cherry led 32-28 at the half and maintained an advantage for most of the game.“I don‘t know if we were ever ahead,” said Ely Head Coach Tom McDonald. “It was usually between four and 10. We were just hanging around.”Ely did trim the gap to four down the stretch, but the Tigers - who got 23 points from Matt Stenlund - did enough to hang on.“There were a couple of possessions at the end that we just didn’t execute,” said Tom McDonald. “Overall they shot better than we did and I thought their defense was better than ours.”Ville Vainio poured in 13 points for the Tigers and Josh Greenly was next with 10.Behind McDonald, Nick Furnstahl was next in the Ely scoring chart with 10 points. Ben Povhe canned three triples to wind up with nine points and Steve Milkovich added five points.Wolves 93, Maranatha Acad. 54The Wolves took their frustrations from the night before out on the Superior school, rolling to a big early lead.“They only had seven kids,” said Tom McDonald. “They had a 6-6 kid inside but not much to go with him and the game was never in question.”By halftime, the Wolves had a 51-24 lead.Eric McDonald had a game-high 37 points including eight three-pointers.Also providing an offensive boost was Milkovich, who had a season-high 16 points and four triples.Ryan Bagnal had nine points, Povhe netted seven while seniors Furnstahl and Jake Ojala contributed six points each to the attack.One of the highlights for Ely came down the stretch, when exchange student Kaosu Takami got his first basket in a Wolves uniform.• The Wolves have reached the midway point of the season with a winning record, entering a stretch that includes games against Section 7A contenders Nashwauk-Keewatin (last night), Mt. Iron-Buhl (next Friday), AlBrook (Feb. 14) and Carlton (Feb. 18)“Our toughest part of the schedule is coming ahead here,” said Tom McDonald. “We’re ahead of where I figured we’d be, but if we don’t start playing better defense we won’t win many more the rest of the way.”

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