by Head Coach Tad Heitkamp
On December 19th, 2022, the Blue Dragons jumped on a bus and headed west to take on the Trojans from West Central. The Blue Dragons played a solid first half of basketball as they went into the locker room down 20-24.
“The kids played very well on both ends of the court the opening 16 minutes,” stated Coach Heitkamp. “We were flying around defensively, which led to a few easy transition buckets and running our designed sets that kept us right in the game.”
The Blue Dragons were not able to keep that momentum going the second half as West Central outscored the visiting team 37 to 16, giving the home team a 61-36 non-conference victory.
“We ran out of gas!” indicated Heitkamp. “West Central was making changes 5 guys at a time and we just don’t have the depth at this time to play at the level 4 quarters. We never gave up and we kept battling, which is something we can build upon moving through the season.”
Ian Buettner had the hot hand for the Blue Dragons as he netted 14 points, while pulling down 7 rebounds. Ramsey Schweitzer had a solid game with 8 points (5 rebounds and 5 assists), as Sam Schleuter (4 rebounds) and Brecken Weir netted 5 points each. Matthew Gilbert and Blaine Trower (4 rebounds and 2 steals) rounded out the scoring with 2 apiece.
The team next headed to Estelline to take on Estelline/Hendricks on December 31, and came out of that game embattled, losing 34-72.
The home game versus Dell Rapids St. Marys scheduled for Tuesday was postponed to Monday, January 30 with JV at 5:30 p.m. and Varsity at 6:45 p.m. due to the winter storm. Unless further postponements occur, the Varsity boys will take on Sioux Valley in Baltic tonight (Thursday) for the first round of the Big East Conference tournament, starting at 6:00 p.m.
