SLOW START COSTS PIRATE BOYS BASKETBALL IN LOSS AT TRF

The Crookston Pirate Boys Basketball team only scored two points in the first seven minutes of the game and never recovered in a 65-52 loss to the Thief River Falls Prowlers in a Section 8AA game played at the Ralph Englestad Arena in Thief River Falls.
Thief River Falls started the game by scoring the first six points with baskets from three different players. Crookston scored their first points of the game when Nick Garmen made two free throws over two minutes into the game. The Prowlers responded by going on a 10-0 run with five different players scoring points for a 16-2 lead with 11:31 left in the half. Nick Garmen stopped the Prowler run with a basket and on the next possession he grabbed an offensive rebound and scored. Thief River Falls’ Brevyn Lingen scored, but Nick scored two more points and Caden Osborn scored the first Pirate points that weren’t scored by Garmen and the Pirates trailed 18-10 with seven minutes left in the half and it looked like Crookston was getting some momentum building. It didn’t take long for Thief River Falls to take the hope of a comeback away because they answered with a 12-3 run with Storm Manning scoring nine of the points on the run and the Prowlers led 30-13 with 4:24 left in the half. The 17 point lead was the biggest of the game for Thief River Falls. The Prowlers took a 36-20 lead into halftime. “You can’t get down 16-2 and spend so much energy to try to get back, especially when we aren’t a high powered offensive team,” said Pirate Coach Greg Garmen. “We had a bunch of players with two fouls at the end of the half and we had a bunch of starters on the bench at the end and that hurt us a little bit. We just came out flat and I’m not sure why after we had a week of practice.”
Crookston had a much better start to the second half when Walker Winjum made a three-pointer and Nick Garmen added a basket to spark an 11-2 run and the Pirates trailed 38-31, the closest they had been since the score was 8-2. Thief River Falls stopped the run with a Lingen three-pointer, but Crookston responded with an Osborn basket and another Winjum three-pointer and Crookston trailed 41-36 with 11:08 remaining and the Pirates were back in the game. Thief River Falls answered with an 8-2 run with three different players scoring and they continued to slowly pull away the rest of the game and the Prowlers won the game 65-52. Crookston’s Nick Garmen had 25 of the teams 52 points to lead all scorers. “Nick played well, but we need the other guys to do what they are capable of,” said Coach Garmen. “We played better in the second half and cut the deficit, but we need to come out better and make some shots. We tried to do a little too much early on. This was a tough loss because coming in it was a game we thought we could win, but that wasn’t the case tonight.”
Crookston drops to 2-2 on the year and will travel to Fosston on Tuesday. Thief River Falls improves to 3-5 on the year.

Chris Kazmierczak looks to pass   Caden Osborn makes a move in the post

Nick Garmen drives by a TRF defender    Walker Winjum uses a screen to get open