EAST GRAND FORKS DEFENDS AND DUNKS THEIR WAY TO A WIN OVER CROOKSTON BOYS BASKETBALL

The East Grand Forks Green Wave held the Crookston Pirate Boys Basketball team scoreless for the first 13-plus minutes of the second half and coasted to a 67-36 victory in a Section 8AA matchup at the East Grand Forks Senior High School gymnasium.  Crookston played without their leading scorer and rebounder, Caden Osborn, because of a knee injury.

FIRST HALF –
East Grand Forks’ Sam Votava scored the first points of the game on a layup for a 2-0 lead before Crookston’s Brady Butt, who was making his first start of the season filling in for the injured Caden Osborn, made a three-pointer and Walker Winjum added a basket to give the Pirates a 5-2 lead. “It was a good start for us,” said Pirate Coach Greg Garmen. “We wanted to be patient and the kids were doing that early.” After a Green Wave basket, Crookston’s Carter Bruggeman answered with a basket for a 7-4 lead. East Grand Forks responded with six straight points for a 10-7 lead. The Pirates answered with a 10-2 run behind a Winjum basket, back-to-back three-pointers from Jack Garmen and Bruggeman, and Easton Tangquist capped the run with a basket to give Crookston a 17-12 lead with 10:23 left in the half. “We were handling the pressure well early on,” said Coach Garmen. “We were getting some open looks and some layups and were doing a nice job.” The teams exchanged points before East Grand Forks went on a 7-0 run with a Tyler Aamodt three-pointer, a Sam Votava layup and two free throws from Nathan Willett for a 22-19 lead halfway through the half. East Grand Forks picked up their defense the rest of the half and outscored the Pirates 16-7 in the final nine minutes and took a 28-29 lead into halftime. “We were right there,” said Coach Garmen. “They made a little run at the end of the half, but without Caden we were pretty happy with our play.”
SECOND HALF –
The start of the half was outstanding for Green Wave fans and a tough one for Crookston fans. East Grand Forks set the tone when they had a two-on-one and Julian Benson drove into the lane and saw Willett sprinting towards the basket and left an alley-oop pass and Willett went up and had a two-hand slam dunk for the first points of the half. About a minute or so later, Willett added another dunk for his fourth straight point. Benson added two baskets before Willet had his third dunk of the half and the Green Wave were off and running and didn’t let Crookston score a point in the half until Tangquist made a shot with 4:23 left in the game.  “We had too many turnovers in the second half and that hurt us,” said Coach Garmen. “It was a tough start (with the two dunks), a tough middle, and tough end.”  The lone Crookston highlight in the second half was late when Cooper Brown scored his first Pirate varsity points with two free throws.  Willett added his fourth dunk of the game about halfway through the half and the Green Wave coasted to a 67-36 victory. “We have to get used to life without Caden and find somebody that wants to get his 13 rebounds per game,” said Coach Garmen. “We will have another tough game with Barnesville on Monday so we will need to be ready.”

Crookston drops to 8-13 on the year and will host Barnesville on Monday. East Grand Forks improves to 20-1 on the year and will host Minneapolis North on Saturday night.
J.V. – EGF won 45-24 C Squad – EGF won 49-27