Boys edge Panthers

The Annandale High School boys basketball team notched its first conference win Friday, Jan. 3, against Glencoe-Silver Lake, a team favored to be second only to 2002 State Champion Litchfield this season.
But the road win didn’t come easily for the Cardinals. It was a solid and exciting basketball game, coach Skip Dolan said, and it ended 52-51.
The Panthers took an 11-8 lead to end the first quarter, but the Cardinals bounced back, outscoring G-SL 17-11 in the second. Annandale took over the lead at halftime 25-22.
The Cardinals picked up two more points to put them ahead by five at the end of a fairly evenly matched third quarter.
Then Annandale took control of the ball at the 31/2-minute mark of the final quarter, opening up a 10-point lead over the Panthers.
But G-SL still had enough tricks up their sleeves to make it a tense final minute. They sunk a three-pointer at the 1:30 mark. Annandale took the ball out of bounds and threw it right to a Panther.
Suddenly a 10-point game had become a five-point game, Dolan said.
A combination of free throws on both sides in the last 55 seconds, and a final Panther three-pointer at the buzzer, ended the game in Annandale’s favor.
“It was a good game,” Dolan said. “I was really pleased with how hard we worked.”
After losing to Meadow Creek in the Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted Holiday Tournament the week before, the Cardinals had some concern about going up against G-SL, a team favored to rival Litchfield in the section tournament.
They worked on their ball sharing and getting a higher percentage of shots and went out and won, Dolan said. “We were extremely pleased.”
Nick Greve led the scoring with 13 points.
Jeremy Stuhr had a breakout game for the Cardinals, going five for five from the field, shooting 100 percent. He had 10 points for the team with four in the second half.
“Every one he had was a big basket for us,” Dolan said.
Ryan Zylstra contributed 11 points and seven rebounds; Tyler Haag had five points and five rebounds; David Queck had five points; Tim Greve had four points and four rebounds, and Keith Stommes had four points and three rebounds.
Friday night’s win put them at 6-1 in regular season play and 1-0 in the Wright County Conference.
The Cardinals will take on Watertown-Mayer on Thursday, Jan. 9, in their second home game of the season. The conference match-up will be another good game, Dolan said. Watertown-Mayer has as high a level of play as anybody else in the conference.
On Friday, Jan. 10, the Cardinals will travel to Orono for a tough non-conference contest.
Both games begin at 7:30 p.m.