Boys Basketball: Big second half powers Shawano past Pulaski

SHAWANO — The Shawano Community High School boys basketball team opened its regular season with a pair of tight wins and looked to be on its way to a third on Friday with Pulaski in town.

Instead, Shawano dominated the second half, outscoring Pulaski 33-12 in the final 18 minutes to pull away for a 69-42 nonconference victory.

Shawano held a 36-30 lead coming out of halftime before senior big man Carter Weisnicht took over. Weisnicht, who finished the game with 29 points, scored 12 of the team’s first 13 points in the second half to help Shawano go up 49-30.

Weisnicht converted three shots near the basket before burying two 3-pointers, which had the crowd buzzing and the bench fired up.

“It felt good. I mean, I haven’t had the best first two games, so it felt good to go out there and get my teammates some shots, get my own (shots) and contribute to the team and get a good win,” said Weisnicht.

Senior Brayden Dickelman added a field goal on a fastbreak chance to cap the Hawks’ 15-0 run to start the half.

Pulaski wasn’t able to trim its deficit below 16 points the rest of the way. A 3-pointer from the Red Raiders made it 59-42 with about five minutes to go before Shawano senior Sam Schulze sealed up the win.

Schulze, who hadn’t scored in the contest up to that point, tallied the final 10 points for the Hawks. He hit two 3-pointers and then added four points from the free throw line after grabbing a pair of offensive rebounds and getting fouled.

Schulze was one of several Hawks to make an impact in the game, something coach David Ambrosius loves about the team.

“We knew going in (to the season) that we were going to have a lot of guys that could go out there and contribute so that played a big factor in how we wanted to design both our offense and defense and how we wanted to play this year,” said Ambrosius. “Obviously, we have all the confidence in the world with the guys that we put out there, that they’re going to be able to get the job done. Tonight was just another example.”

Eight of Shawano’s 10 players that played scored, with senior Nick Sherman scoring 15 points to join Weisnicht and Schulze in double figures.

Weisnicht’s 14 points and Sherman’s 10 led an efficient Hawks’ offense in the first half, but the Red Raiders knocked down seven 3-pointers to keep things close.

Shawano turned up its intensity on defense to stifle Pulaski in the second half.

“Pulaski is really, really good. They got some guys that can really shoot the basketball, so what we saw in the first half was not surprising by any stretch of the imagination,” said Ambrosius.

“I thought our kids did a really good job of taking the adjustments we made at halftime. We really turned up the defensive pressure, and in doing so, the tempo picked up a little bit and we started to play our tempo of basketball.”

The win moved the Hawks to 3-0 on the season. Shawano will look to remain perfect when hosting Green Bay West on Tuesday.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” said Sherman on the start to the season. “All of us guys are really close — it’s like family, we’re brothers. We have a lot of fun in practice, we have a lot of fun in games. We just got to bring the energy and that’s what we’re doing. We want to play defense and want to play fast and bring that energy and show every team that we can do it.”

Pulaski 30 12 — 42

Shawano 36 33 — 69

Shawano (69): Kaleb Lowney 0-0 3, Elliott Lowney 1-2 3, Nick Sherman 5-7 15, Sam Schulze 4-4 10, Jayden VanOss 0-0 2, Ethan Schwitzer 0-0 5, Brayden Dickelman 0-0 2, Carter Weisnicht 3-4 29.

Pulaski (42): Brock Egnarski 0-0 11, Jarron Mckeefry 0-1 2, Matt Holloway 0-0 4, Jonah Klingeisen 1-2 17, Nash Lemerond 1-5 3, Bo Bramschreiber 0-0 5.

sports@newmedia-wi.com