Midgets upset 2nd-place Cardinals

HURLEY - South Shore's Blake Reijo poses quite a challenge with his outside shooting ability.

Earlier in the week, Ironwood went with 6-5 Jake DiGiorgio to slow down Reijo (6-3). On Friday night, Hurley utilized 5-5 Kohl Manzanares with some help from 5-11 Colton Dowd against the Cardinal sharp shooter.

Both strategies worked.

The Midgets knocked off South Shore, which is in second place in the Indianhead Conference West Division, 56-42 Friday night.

"I thought they did a fantastic job on him," Hurley coach Mike Swartz said. "They were just locked in on him."

The Midgets bounced back quickly from Thursday night's 49-29 loss at Ashland.

"I was really happy with the effort tonight, nice bounce back from last night," Swartz said. "We had a little meeting today after school and looked at some film. A lot of our mistakes last night were just effort. I thought the kids responded and played fairly well tonight.

"That was a huge win just for our confidence. Hopefully we can't start stringing a few together here."

Reijo scored 21 points, including six 3-pointers, but he rushed a lot more shots as the Cardinals were also missing Zeke Neider late. Neider fouled out early in the fourth quarter, leaving Hurley with a mismatch inside.

Manzanares had to work to hold down Reijo, but Reijo ended the night more frustrated.

"He's a good ballplayer for sure," Manzanares said. "I couldn't do it without my help. They had to help me when he broke my ankles a couple times, well one time for sure. I was in his face. Coach told me to play hard against him, don't let him get the ball, shut down defense, all day, all night."

South Shore was just 1 of 15 from behind the arc in the first half as Reijo was frustrated.

"He is just a nuisance, and just pesky, a little ankle-biter almost," Swartz said of Manzanares. "He has a lot of energy and I thought he'd be our best option. I originally thought about going with Jake (Tenlen), but with the ankle injury, I didn't think that'd be a good idea. I thought he'd be our best chance to just frustrate him and he did that tonight. I can't say enough about Kohl's defensive effort. I thought Colton went in there, too, and made him work."

South Shore coach Matt Hipsher said the Cardinals rushed their shots.

"They played good defense on us," he said. "We were not set up in a good offense and we didn't execute our plays."

The Cardinals held their only leads in the first four minutes of the game. After leading 6-5, they were outscored by the Midgets 10-3 to end the first quarter. Hurley led 15-9.

The Midgets led 27-20 at the half thanks to a triple by Mitchell Maki with 1:01 left.

Neider picked up his fourth foul early in the second half and then he fouled out with 7:38 left in the game and his team trailing 42-31.

Tandrell Foster scored underneath while being fouled to put the Midgets up 44-31. The Midgets' lead never got under 10 points in the fourth.

When South Shore had numbers while trailing by 13 points, Maki blocked a shot and Hurley got a transition basket itself, by Foster, for a 51-36 lead. South Shore never made a serious run.

"I thought Tandrell really asserted himself inside," Swartz said.

James Sukanen led Hurley with 20 points. Mitchell Maki had 12.

"When (Neider) picked up his fifth, they didn't have anyone who could really match up our size," Swartz said. "James had another big game for us. I thought everyone contributed. Luke Marczak gave us some good minutes, handled the ball, hit a big 3 for us in the first half. That was a complete team effort."

Hurley (6-9, 5-4) goes to Drummond Tuesday.

South Shore - Mitch Dehate 5, Nick Botosh 1, Zeke Neider 7, Connor Sorenson 6, Dallas Williams 2, Blake Reijo 21. FTs: 6-11. Fouls: 17. Fouled out: None. 3-pointers: Reijo 6.

Hurley - Jake Tenlen 2, Luke Marczak 4, Colton Dowd 2, Kohl Manzanares 6, Tandrell Foster 6, L.J. Kutz 2, James Sukanen 20, Mitchell Maki 12, Jacob Saari 2. FTs: 9-16. Fouls: 11. Fouled out: None. 3-pointers: Maki 3, Manzanares 1, Marczak 1.

South Shore 9 20 31 42

Hurley 15 27 42 56