On Thursday, Feb. 10, the Ellsworth boys basketball hosted its 2021-22 iteration of senior night and honored its seven seniors in their final home game of the season, a 41-58 loss against the Baldwin-Woodville Blackhawks, a team that is ranked as the tenth best team in the state.

While the Panthers’ season hasn’t gone according to play with injuries and illness, head coach Jordan Petersen, his coaching staff, the school and the community came together on Thursday night to celebrate the athletics careers of all seven Ellsworth seniors. Petersen spoke about his group of seniors.

“They mean a lot to me because I came in here four years ago, they’re the first group that I’ve seen through all four years,” Petersen said. “It’s the first time in my coaching career that I’ve been able to do that whether that be in college or other stops. It’s cool to see their progression not only on the court but off the court as people. They’re a special group in my heart and they’re just a good group of guys that are fun to be around.”

Once the senior night festivities were over, the opening tip got the game underway. The Blackhawks quickly took an 8-2 lead less than three minutes into the game which forced a timeout by Petersen. Baldwin-Woodville’s offense was slow, methodical and physical in its attack of Ellsworth.

The most critical scoring run of the first half by either team was Baldwin-Woodville’s 11-0 run that began near the eightminute mark and ended with just over four minutes left in the first half. In addition to making field goals, the Blackhawks out-rebounded Ellsworth. Offensive rebounds accounted for two of the five scores during the aforementioned scoring run.

The Blackhawks took a 33-23 lead into the halftime intermission. Coach Petersen spoke about what made Baldwin-Woodville such a difficult matchup for his Ellsworth roster.

“They’re top 10 in the state for a reason,” Petersen said. “They’re big, they’re physical, they pose a big challenge for us just from a sheer size and athleticism standpoint. They disrupted our offense from denial and things like that. We didn’t adjust great early on.”

The physicality of the Baldwin-Woodville defense made it hard for Ellsworth to score. Not to mention that the officials were conservative in their foul calls which favored the more physical Blackhawk team.

In the second half, Ellsworth’s best offense was because of its defense. Midway through the second half, Petersen put the full-court press on Baldwin-Woodville which led to a couple of steals and easy transition offense.

“We don’t (go to the press that often),” Petersen said. “It’s something that we constantly look at and it’s feeling out what Jack (Janke) can do in trying to conserve that. Do we want to put him through that and still ask him to carry the offensive load?”

While the press is a game-by-game decision, boxing out isn’t. Petersen stated that he can preach about boxing out all he wants, but at some point, it comes down to size and physicality – two aspects Baldwin-Woodville has in spades.

“(Boxing out) is something you can work on, but you can’t replicate that size and you can’t practice without having that size,” Petersen said. “You can only preach in practice and say get bodies on people so much if they have two or three inches. We were good on the initial trap, but we struggled to help the helper and box out those guys crashing down.”

Baldwin-Woodville’s size and athleticism are part of the reason why the Blackhawks are ranked as a top-10 Division 3 team in the state. Baldwin-Woodville cracked the top-10 for the first time in the week 11 coaches’ poll, which ranked the Blackhawks as the tenth best team.

After the 41-58 loss at home against Baldwin-Woodville, Ellsworth traveled to Cochrane-Fountain City for a non-conference matchup on Friday, Feb. 11. The Panthers fell behind 29-23 at the halftime intermission. However, Ellsworth outscored Cochrane-Fountain City 30-20 in the second half to complete the comeback en route to a 59-43 victory.

The non-conference victory improved Ellsworth’s record to 6-12 for the season. The Panthers finish the season with four consecutive road games, including contests against Rice Lake, Somerset, New Richmond and Altoona.

Up next for the Panthers is at Rice Lake on Tuesday, Feb. 15. That game against the Warriors is slated to begin at 7:15 p.m.

The Thursday night, Feb. 10, Ellsworth Panthers basketball game was the final home game for the seven seniors in the graduating class of 2022. (From left): The seven seniors are Tanner Pechacek, Alex Coulthard, Ashten Quade, Urban Broadway, Jack Janke, Carsen Stockwell, and Spencer Schultz. Photo by Reagan Hoverman