Shawano boys basketball team holds on late for big Bay win

The Shawano Community High School boys basketball did just enough in the final minutes to fend off a New London comeback attempt and pick up a much-needed 72-68 Bay Conference win on Jan. 21 in Shawano.

The win bumped the Hawks to 4-2 in conference play, which is good enough for a tie for second with West De Pere and New London. The victory also keeps the team’s chances of a conference title alive, as Shawano has yet to play conference leader Xavier, which is 6-0.

“We knew coming in, if we want to win conference, we have to have this one,” said Shawano’s Michael Metcalf-Grassman. “We started out hot, playing well, had a 15-point lead at one point, I think. We can’t do what we did (late) where we turned the ball over that much, but we were able to pull through and got the win.”

Shawano’s hot start saw the team convert shots on its first six possessions, building a 13-3 advantage. Brandon Reed, Jacob Landon and Logan Sipple hit the team’s first three shots. Sipple also had the fourth make before a Reed 3-pointer and another bucket by Landon.

Over the next five minutes, Shawano went cold from the field, with just a pair of Metcalf-Grassman free throws in that time.

Sipple hit a shot to snap the team’s cold streak before Metcalf-Grassman had a steal and dunk to get him going offensively.

A Landon basket was followed by a New London triple. Metcalf-Grassman had the next basket before New London answered on the opposite end of the court.

Shawano took control of the game on the back of Metcalf-Grassman, who made three 3-pointers over about a minute stretch to turn a four-point lead into a 32-19 advantage.

New London scored a couple times over the next minute, but Shawano threatened to run away with the game after Landon and Sipple combined for six points to make it a 38-23 lead. The visitors answered with the final five points of the half.

The teams traded baskets at the start of the second half. After New London briefly cut it to a nine-point game, 45-36, Sipple converted a shot and Reed had an alley-oop dunk off an inbound pass to give Shawano some momentum.

The visitors scored next, but seven straight points from the Hawks had them threatening to run away with the game again. Deacon Carroll had five points on the run, while Reed scored again.

New London again had an answer, scoring 12 of the next 15 points to get back within eight, 59-51.

It was Shawano’s turn to answer, and it did with a 7-0 spurt, with Reed, Landon and Sipple scoring.

New London turned up its defensive intensity at that point, and Shawano had trouble simply getting the ball into the frontcourt for the next few minutes. Several turnovers allowed New London to catch right back up.

“I think we were relaxing a little bit,” said Metcalf-Grassman. We just had a rough stretch from about six minutes all the way down to that minute mark where we just fell apart. We can’t do that.”

Sipple had a big basket to briefly halt the comeback effort, but a missed free throw on a one-and-one chance kept Shawano from sealing things up.

Sipple had another clutch basket with 1:30 to play, making it a 70-65 lead, but yet another Shawano turnover got New London back within three with just under a minute to play.

The next sequence in the game was a wild one. After a New London player fouled out, the player wasn’t immediately pulled from the game after the referees didn’t halt play for a substitution to be made. The refs allowed Shawano to re-shoot a free throw in a one-and-one chance, but Shawano missed both opportunities.

New London missed on the other end of the floor, but got an offensive rebound and was fouled. The first free throw was good, but the second missed.

Shawano grabbed the loose ball and had another chance to seal the game with two free throws, but instead missed twice. New London turned the ball over on its next possession.

The Hawks missed two more free throws with 8.9 seconds left, but Julian Perez grabbed an offensive rebound and got the ball to Metcalf-Grassman, who finally sank two free throws to seal the contest with 4 seconds left.

Reed said the team was able to prevail by “continuing to play our game, and our heart really helped us win that.”

“This should really set the tone for next week,” added Reed. “We got Menasha whose been playing good and then West De Pere — hopefully we can go take one there.”

New London 28 40 — 68

Shawano 38 34 — 72

Shawano (72): Logan Sipple 0-0 18, Julian Perez 0-2 0, Michael Metcalf-Grassman 5-7 23, Jacob Landon 3-4 15, Brandon Reed 0-3 11, Deacon Carroll 1-1 5.

New London (68): Michael Helsten 0-0 2, Tyler Gerrits 0-0 13, Kyle Wisniewski 0-0 19, Jonah Schlueter 6-9 20, Ayden Kanaman 2-3 2, Brayden Fehrman 1-2 6, Ian Oberstadt 0-1 6.

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