FOUL TROUBLE COSTS CROOKSTON BOY’S BASKETBALL IN LOSS TO FOSSTON                                                                                                                            

The Crookston Pirates boy’s basketball team struggled with first-half foul trouble, and sluggish offense in a 62-52 loss to the Fosston Greyhounds in a non-Section game played at the Crookston High School Gymnasium.
Crookston started the game well offensively with Jaden Lubarski scoring on a put-back lay-up to give Crookston a 2-0 lead. Josh Bernia knocked down a three-pointer growing the Pirates’ lead to 5-2 before a Nick Garmen offensive rebound resulted in a turn-around jump shot in the paint from Garmen pushing Crookston’s lead to 7-2. Jaden Lubarski scored his second basket with a move on the left block to create separation for his lay-up that pushed the hosts ahead 9-4. Leading 9-8, Jaden Lubarski hit Josh Bernia with a pass on the perimeter allowing Bernia to make the open triple before Walker Winjum kicked a pass out to Nick Garmen for another Pirates’ three-pointer giving Crookston a 15-8 lead. Walker Winjum made another three-pointer for the Pirates to gain an 18-11 advantage. After a Caden Osborn lay-up in the paint gave Crookston a 22-16 lead, Fosston scored five straight points to pull within 22-21. Nick Garmen made another three-pointer pushing the Pirates ahead 25-21, but Fosston ended the first half on a 5-0 run with an Isaac Dryburgh finish through a foul and subsequent free-throw giving the Greyhounds a 26-25 halftime lead.
“We got in a bit of foul trouble early, it was sort of a similar game to Thief River, we had a couple of starters (Nick Garmen and Jaden Lubarski) pick up two fouls, and I’ve been taking them out, and maybe I’ve got to revisit that,” said Crookston head coach Greg Garmen. “It’s easy to look back now, but we’ve got to avoid the fouls in the first place. I’ve got to see where we’re getting them. We’ve got to be a little sharper with hands up instead of out to avoid the ticky-tack ones. We’ve got to shore that up because we need our starters on the floor as much as we can. We don’t know how deep we are yet and we’re trying to figure that out. We’ve got to have other kids step up. We missed some easy shots tonight, I felt, inside and right at the rim. We were doing some uncharacteristic things missing some lay-ups and some bunnies. We need to hit the easy shots because we’re not a high-powered offense and the other stuff is going to be tough to come by.”
Fosston opened the second half by scoring the first four points of the half to gain a 30-25 edge. Nick Garmen made Crookston’s first free-throw attempt of the night with 16:10 left in the game to pull the Pirates within 30-26. Austin Schmidt dominated throughout the second-half scoring eight straight Fosston points early in the second half pushing the visitors ahead 33-26. Nick Garmen answered with a steal and in-rhythm three-pointer bringing Crookston back within 33-29. Schmidt countered with a lay-up as part of his 26-point night with four-straight free-throws later in the second half giving Fosston a 51-43 lead. Trailing 53-43, Caden Osborn knocked down a jumper from the free-throw line to cut the deficit back to within single-digits. A Josh Bernia reverse lay-up under the basket pulled Crookston to within 53-47, but the Greyhounds forced Crookston to foul down the stretch, and the visitors continued to make their free-throws with Fosston shooting 22-33 from the free-throw line to help close out the 62-52 road win.
“I thought early we were clicking a little bit and playing well and then we got some kids on the bench in foul trouble and we just sort of slowed down on both ends of the floor and they got too much going to the rim and we didn’t get enough,” summarized Garmen. “We didn’t shoot well, really in either half and they beat us down the middle too much. We couldn’t keep (Austin Schmidt) under control, and we needed to do that. We’ve got to quit following. Keep our kids in the game and continue to try and figure out who off the bench can step up and give us a little bit of a lift. We need some scoring punch and some defensive stopping from whoever that person is, and we’ll keep looking.”
The Pirates drop to 2-3 and return to the court on Friday when Crookston takes on Warren-Alvarado-Oslo at Lysaker Gymnasium on the UMC campus tipping off at 8 p.m. on KROX. Fosston improves to 3-3.