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On Friday, March 4, the River Falls boys basketball team defeated the Holmen Vikings 77-45 to advance to the WIAA Division 2 Regional Final on Saturday, March 5, a game that River Falls lost to Onalaska 68-60. The regional final loss is the fourth time in the last six seasons that Onalaska has knocked River Falls out of the playoffs.

Before reaching the game against Onalaska, the secondseeded Wildcats had to defeat the #7 seed Holmen Vikings. Earlier this season on Tuesday, Jan. 11 River Falls defeated Holmen 66-44. The second meeting between the two teams in the second round of the playoffs didn’t go much differently.

River Falls led Holmen 22-16 with four minutes remaining in the first half. Throughout the next two minutes, River Falls went on an 11-2 scoring run that included a threepointer by senior Jacob Landgraf, a wing three-pointer by senior forward Ethan Campbell, a bank three by senior guard Ryan Langer, and a running layup by freshman guard Preston Johnson.

That scoring run helped River Falls take a 36-21 lead going into the half. Considering that the strength of the Wildcats’ team is its man-toman defense, the game had essentially been sealed in River Falls’ favor in those closing four minutes of the opening frame.

The second half wasn’t much different, as River Falls cruised to a 77-45 victory in the regional semi-final against Holmen. The aforementioned Campbell led the scoring for River Falls with 21 points on 6-8 shooting, including 3-5 from behind the three-point arc. Landgraf also had a good evening, posting 16 points on 4-7 from the field. River Falls head coach Zac Campbell spoke about the win.

“The way the game started made me nervous because of our reads and what we want to do because of the ball being on the deck laterally,” Zac Campbell said. “When we settled down, we hit some shots. We didn’t get the ball inside enough, but thankfully, we were hitting shots.”

Open shots were partially created by the duo of Ethan Campbell and senior center Kaden Rowekamp on the floor at the same time. Ethan Campbell’s ability to stretch the floor as a power forward, combined with Rowekamp’s inside ability generated open looks for the Wildcats.

“From an offensive standpoint, it’s a great way to stretch it and be able to play inside and out,” Zac Campbell said of the senior duo. “With Kaden (Rowekamp), what a luxury it is to be able to bring him off of the bench and score so well for us. Ryan Langer is another one for us. He doesn’t score it as well, but he’s so important to our defense and transition game.”

For Zac Campbell, the score doesn’t always indicate whether his team is executing well or not. Earlier this season, River Falls was blowing teams out, but he said they weren’t executing at a high enough level. He said that in the last month, they’ve been executing better than they have all season.

“Our execution in the past month offensively is on a different level than it has been the rest of the year,” Zac Campbell said. “It’s been masked because we haven’t shot the ball well up until last Thursday, that’s when the lid kind of came off. That’s a confidence thing. We’ve got guys that can shoot. When we are executing and hitting shots, we’re a tough team to play.”

As soon as the Holmen game was over, Zac Campbell and the River Falls Wildcats had to start preparing for the Onalaska Hilltoppers on a oneday turnaround. He spoke about what to expect in the Onalaska game the following night.

“You’re not going to see an 80-point game tomorrow,” Zac Campbell said. “They pride themselves defensively and have a freshman that is probably a future Division 1 (college) player in (T.J.) Stuttley.”

Zac Campbell stated that hitting shots would be critical if they were going to beat Onalaska. In addition to that, they would have to defend at a high level against some of the outside shooting. He knew that offense was going to be a grind against Onalaska, and it was.

______________________ __________________________ _______________ For River Falls, the key to defeating Onalaska in the playoffs – for the first time in six years – was going to be hitting outside shots and defending well. Unfortunately for the Wildcats, in the first half against the Hilltoppers, they struggled to defend the three and hit outside shots.

Six minutes into the game, Onalaska led River Falls 10-9. That’s when the Hilltoppers went on a 14-2 scoring run to take a 24-11 lead with six minutes to go in the first half. River Falls sophomore Joey Butz slowed the scoring run with a corner three-pointer to cut the lead to a dozen with four minutes to play in the opening half.

Onalaska continued to have success shooting from the outside, while the Wildcats continued to struggle. While leading 26-17 with three minutes to go in the half, the Hilltoppers went on another scoring run. This time it was a 14-4 run that gave Onalaska a 40-21 lead going into the half. Zac Campbell spoke about the first-half struggles.

“Confidence is the great equalizer in life,” Zac Campbell said of the shooting woes. “We didn’t control the dribble early in the game and allowed Onalaska their first six field goals at the rim. Seeing the ball go through the net gives a lot of confidence and I felt they found their rhythm from the perimeter because of the early rim looks we didn’t take away.”

In addition to allowing Onalaska to gain confidence, he noted that the Wildcats weren’t able to gain any confidence early. He spoke about missing some of those early three-point looks.

“On our end, we had a ton of great perimeter looks, but once a couple of them didn’t fall it really hurt us on both ends of the court,” Zac Campbell said. “We didn’t move as quick defensively and didn’t convert open looks offensively.”

Down 19 points at the half to one of the best Division 2 teams in the western half of the state is a tough place to be with potentially only 18 minutes left in the season. Zac Campbell spoke about some of the goals in the second half regarding making it a competitive game.

“We were down 19 and needed to cut it to eight by the eight-minute mark,” Zac Campbell said. “We made some adjustments on ball screen defense along with zone offensive slides and a couple of personnel tweaks at halftime. The confidence in the boys changed and that’s what allowed us to come back and make it a game.”

The River Falls boys put up a serious fight in the second half. Seven minutes into the half, River Falls went on a 7-0 run to get the game within striking distance. It started with a corner three-pointer by Butz, a layup by Ethan Campbell, and a steal and layup by senior point guard Michael Schurman to make it a 46-31 game in favor of Onalaska.

The Wildcats continued to battle throughout the half and with less than one minute left in regulation, River Falls had cut it to a six-point lead, 66-60. The final score was a 68-60 loss for River Falls. The Wildcats simply ran out of time. Zac Campbell spoke about his team fighting back in that second half.

“I’m happy with the fight of our team, but anybody that’s watched this group all year knew that fight was coming, it would be out of character for these guys not to have that,” Zac Campbell said. “We work for three and a half months to gain a standing in our conference and a seed in the playoffs. Then playoffs come, and each game turns into a 36-minute season. When you have a 12-minute stretch that we had in the first half, that equates to a third of the season getting beat. Those are so difficult to come back from in a one-game season.”

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