Prep boys basketball: Fall Creek falls to unbeaten Clear Lake in sectional semifinals

Feb. 26—FALL CREEK — Fall Creek boys basketball was the favorite in Thursday's sectional semifinals, but the Crickets knew their foe would be no pushover. Clear Lake entered the contest undefeated, riding a 21-game winning streak.

Unfortunately for Fall Creek, the Warriors left the gym still without a blemish on their record.

Riley Peterson scored 25 points, finding space throughout the Crickets' defensive end, and Clear Lake survived a comeback attempt from the hosts in a 63-54 victory in Fall Creek. With the loss, a memorable season featuring a couple championships came to an end for the Crickets.

"I'm proud of the kids and what they did here tonight," Fall Creek coach Rick Storlie said. "I love these kids. They did everything that I asked of them and they were really trying. Winning a conference title that nobody expected us to be in the running for and then winning a regional championship to get here tonight to a sectional, it's pretty special."

Clear Lake earned a wire-to-wire victory, though the Crickets did make things interesting. Fall Creek cut a 13-point first half lead to two at the break and got within one midway through the second half before the Warriors pulled ahead again. There was one final glimmer of hope in the final three minutes when a pair of Luke Olson free throws cut the lead to five, but the Crickets never were able to get within a score again.

"We knew it would be a tough task when we got the three seed," Clear Lake coach Jason Sargent said. "We were sitting at 21-0 and feeling pretty good about maybe getting a No. 1 or 2 seed. The kids were pretty disappointed, but we just said, 'Hey, you know what, usually the sectionals are on the road. We're a good team, we've got to believe in what we do and go prove ourselves. No one respects us.' I thought the kids really came out and set the tone early."

The Warriors built up a lead in the first half largely by finding back door cutters, with the 6-foot-5 Peterson often serving as the beneficiary of the passes. Clear Lake went up 7-0 in the first two minutes of the game and topped out at a 13-point advantage when Peterson hit a midrange jumper to push the score to 20-7 with 10:12 remaining.

Fall Creek has big men of its own, and they were better able to clog the inside in the closing minutes of the first half. That effort, combined with a cleaning up of turnovers on the offensive end, helped the Crickets close the frame on a 13-3 run to cut the deficit to two points.

The team was riding high heading into the locker room, juiced up by a limited but loud crowd.

"I thought our bench got us back into the ball game there in the first half," Storlie said. "To only be down by two points at halftime, we felt pretty good."

Fall Creek cut that deficit to one point at 36-35 when Olson hit a 3-pointer with 13:54 remaining in the second half. But the Warriors started to force turnovers again, allowing them to respond.

"We got the ball down one and then we turned it over on two possessions," Storlie said. "They scored on both and the lead suddenly went to six, seven points. We just had difficulty finding gaps against their defense."

The teams traded runs from there, with Clear Lake going up by as much as 12 with 5:23 on the clock.

Fall Creek had a chance to pull off a stellar comeback in the closing minutes thanks to a handful of missed free throw opportunities from the Warriors but Cricket shots didn't fall. Even with spotty shooting, Clear Lake was able to ice the game away at the line.

Jayden Fitch led the Crickets with 21 points.

The Crickets graduate a nine player senior class consisting of Nathan Sorensen, Brock Laube, Isaiah Kaufman, Teigen Ploeckelman, Nolan Martzke, Jack Riemenschneider, Jayden Fitch, Luke Olson and Jacob Pritzl.

"We're going to take away the memories that we shared," Storlie said. "Winning the conference title on our home floor was very, very big. The regional championship we won here against a really good Spring Valley team. It's the memories that you have, the little things that happen in practice and how they came together without Jayden Fitch for half the season."

Clear Lake advances to play top-seeded Edgar in the sectional finals Saturday.

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Clear Lake 63, Fall Creek 54

Clear Lake (22-0): Adam Loenser 10, Riley Peterson 25, Jacob Burbach 6, Tyson Blanchard 12, Alex St. John 4, Ashtyn O'Bryan 6.

Fall Creek (19-6): Teigen Ploeckelman 8, Jack Riemenschneider 2, Jayden Fitch 21, Soren Johnson 6, Luke Olson 8, Bo Vollrath 9.

3-point goals: Clear Lake 4 (Loenser 3, Blanchard), Fall Creek 4 (Ploeckelman 2, Olson 2).

Halftime: Clear Lake 30-28.