PIRATE BASKETBALL SINK 10 FIRST HALF THREE POINTERS TO BEAT BAGLEY

Crookston’s Tanner Giese (pronounced Geese) went off for seven three pointers and ended with a career high 32 points to lead the Pirates to a 73-58 win to sweep the Bagley Flyers in the two games they played against each other.

First Half
Giese wasn’t the only Pirate to hit three-point shots as Isaac Thomforde, and Ryan Abeld hit early long shots to stake the Pirates to an 8-4 lead. Then it was T.G time… Giese was unconscious, hitting three long shots to lead the Pirates on a 13-0 run for a 21-6 lead with about eight minutes to go in the half. “I thought Tanner probably played his best overall game last night in the loss to Fertile-Beltrami,” said Crookston head coach Greg Garmen, “He scored, played defense well, passed the ball well, just a strong game despite the loss.” How did Giese come into this game after the loss to Fertile-Beltrami last night? “To drop 30 this afternoon, which I did.” Giese best offensive output in his second year as a Pirate was 30 against Roseau until his 32 tonight. “I felt good and just kept shooting while I was making them,” said Giese. Crookston had 10 three-pointers in the first half, with Abeld hitting two and the one by Thomforde, and led 42-20 at the break. “Tanner has shown signs of shooting like that,” said Garmen, “but never like through the whole game. Usually, the other team will figure out when someone is hot like that, but Tanner kept getting open shots.”

Second Half
Crookston was going to start the second half and see if Giese would continue to be on fire. “We designed a play for him to start the half, and we missed, but he did score from the free throw line in the second half,” said Garmen.  Crookston did add a couple more three’s in the second half from Reggie Winjum and Brannon Tangquist and led 52-29. They reached their largest lead with 7:45 to go in the game at 63-33 with a Bagley player drawing two technicals on one play, and Crookston made five free throws, one by Hunter Nicholas and four by Giese. Crookston started substituting freely in the second half, and all 15 played some minutes, and 11 players scored. Bagley was able to chip a bit into Crookston’s lead with a couple of threes, and they had four players in double figures for the game. “We did a good job of moving the ball around, Hunter did a good job in the middle,” said Garmen, “people were contributing in all ways, whether it was on the defensive end by forcing turnovers early in the game with our sort of three quarter court pressure that helped us getting going to start the game.”

Crookston improves to 8-17 on the year and has one game left of the regular season, which is Friday hosting the Ada-Borup/West Cougars. Ada-Borup is 17-8 on the season after beating Pelican Rapids last night. The Cougars will play at East Grand Forks on Thursday before coming to Crookston. “They always have the tall, lanky athletes with strong guards, which they are this year,” said Garmen, “we’ll have our work cut out for us, but hopefully, the kids are up for the challenge with a couple of practice before that, and we will see what kind of game plan we get to put together for them.” The Section 8AA boy’s basketball playoffs will start on Thursday, March 9, with Crookston on the road with the possibility of playing Barnesville, Wadena-Deer Creek, East Grand Forks, or Pelican Rapids!

Bagley finished their regular season at 2-24 after today’s loss. The Flyers play in Section 8A and appear to play a play-in game on Monday at either Win-E-Mac or Mahnomen-Waubun.