East Grand Forks Green Wave senior guard, Sam Votova, scored 27 points to lead his team to a 70-47 victory over the Crookston Pirate Boy’s Basketball team in a Section 8A matchup in East Grand Forks.
FIRST HALF –
Crookston’s Carter Bruggeman scored the first points of the game, but EGF scored the next four points of the game. With 13:16 left in the half, Jack Garmen scored to tie the game at 4 and EGF’s Sam Votova picked up his second foul of the game. Crookston already had Bruggeman on the bench with two fouls, but the Green Wave elected to keep Votova in the game and it proved to be the right move as he scored less than a minute later to spark an 8-0 run with back-to-back three-pointers from Carter Vasek and Tyson Mahar for a 12-4 lead. “Votova is a load. He is a very good player and we struggled to stop him tonight,” said Pirate Coach Greg Garmen. Crookston responded with a Tristan Luckow basket and a Jacob Miller three-pointer to get within a 12-9 deficit with less than eight minutes left in the half. Sam Votova stopped the Crookston run with a three-pointer and followed with two free throws to spark a 10-0 run while also drawing the third foul against the Pirates’ Bruggeman. “We’re not very deep right now and if we get one of our starting five in trouble and we are a little bit different,” said Pirate Coach Garmen. “I put Carter back in and had somebody at the table when he picked up his third.” The Green Wave cruised the rest of the half on their way to a 39-19 lead. “We needed to keep people out of foul trouble and didn’t do that,” said Coach Garmen. “We couldn’t get anything to go in tonight, even with wide-open shots.”
SECOND HALF –
EGF’s Sam Votova started the second half with a basket before Crookston’s Easton Tangquist scored. Votova responded with three more points for 21 total in the game, which was the same as the Pirate team had scored and the Green Wave led 44-21. Crookston had a spark about halfway through the half when Tristan Luckow had a basket and two free throws to bring the Pirates within a 51-30 deficit. East Grand Forks started to go deep into the bench the rest of the game and had 10 players score while playing everybody that was dressed and cruised to a 70-47 victory. “Our bench almost outscored our starters tonight. Jacob Miller didn’t play much last year because of a leg injury and has always shot the ball well and Tristan played well tonight and they gave us a spark,” said Coach Garmen. “I thought we got worked on the boards and were standing around watching. We have to be better technically at boxing out,” said Coach Garmen. “We didn’t defend very well, we didn’t rebound very well, and we didn’t shoot very well and those were my three keys to the game I told you on the pregame show. The boys played hard, but maybe they were pressing a bit. It was a tough night.”
Crookston drops to 0-1 on the year and will host Roseau on Tuesday. East Grand Forks improves to 2-0 on the year and will travel to Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton on Monday.
| 1st | 2nd | Final | |
| CROOKSTON | 19 | 28 | 47 |
| East Grand Forks | 39 | 31 | 70 |
| For Crookston | Points | Rebound | Steals/Assists |
| Easton Tangquist | 12 | 6 | |
| Jacob Miller | 12 | 2 steals | |
| Tristan Luckow | 10 | 6 | 3 steals/2 blocks |
| Carter Bruggeman | 6 | ||
| Jack Garmen | 5 | 3 steals | |
| Brooks Butt | 2 | 3 | 2 assists |
| For EGF | Points |
| Sam Votova | 27 |
| Tanner Campos | 10 |
| Carter Vasek | 10 |
| Cole Gerber | 7 |
| Jeremiah Haavig | 5 |
| Tyson Mahar | 3 |
| Jonathan Krueger | 2 |
| Spencer Egeland | 2 |
| Jeff Vetterkind | 2 |
| Caleb Zejdlik | 2 |
