It was a tough defensive game from tip off. The first points on the board didn’t come until 3:15 into the game when Eau Claire put up a three-pointer to take the opening lead.

Wildcat Preston Johnson answered back for the home team with a nice move to slide past a defender for the layup. A couple of nice steals and two impressive baskets by Joey Butz, and River Falls was up 6-3. Eau Claire would follow this up with a 9-2 run to take the lead and force a Wildcat timeout.

Memorial extended the lead with a three-pointer coming out of the play stoppage, but as had already happened twice, Butz showed up for River Falls making another heavily contested jump shot for two to shrink the Abes’ lead to 15-10.

With 3:00 to play in period one, Eau Claire had pulled out to a 15-point lead at 32-17 all while keeping consistently tight coverage on River Falls who had to earn every basket.

A brilliant pass from inside by the basket via Preston Johnson gave Butz a wide-open look at a three-pointer which he drained. It couldn’t stave off Eau Claire, though, as they followed that up by extending their lead to 17-points. With 90 seconds remaining, River Falls took a time out to regroup, but the game went into the half with Eau Claire leading 37-20.

Both teams came into the “final” period looking like the second half was going to be a repeat of the first as the Old Abes increased their lead to a game high 18-points.

That’s when River Falls’ defense tightened up and refused to give more ground, and the offense started to chip away at that lead. When Eau Claire’s lead got down to 40-27, they took a timeout to try to stop the bleeding.

What followed was a repeat of the first few minutes of the game with neither side giving ground and both playing excellent defense.

Although the Abes would briefly retake a 15-point lead, Brody Graetz would single handedly take a chunk of that back. In less than 0:15, Graetz sunk a three, got a steal and took the fast break all the way back for two more. In total, he scored seven straight points for the Wildcats.

With 6:40 remaining in regulation, Eau Claire’s lead continued to hover around a dozen. A layup by Preston Johnson followed by a Butz steal and fast break, and all of a sudden they were back in striking distance with an eight-point deficit at 50-42. The Old Abes predictably chose this moment for another timeout.

It did not have the desired result.

Butz added on to his already large point total by draining a beautiful three-pointer from the top left of the key to cut the lead back to five.

Each team exchanged free throws to keep the status quo, but another steal and a fast break by Butz cut the lead to four. With the score at 57-53, River Falls took a timeout with 1:51 remaining to strategize completing the highly improbable comeback.

It was a defensive minute of play coming out of the break that was punctuated by an Eau Claire Memorial field goal to take a six-point lead to put the game virtually out of reach for the home team at 59-53.

That’s when things got wild.

A deep three-pointer by Preston Johnson cut the lead in half. A steal by Butz had the Wildcats driving downhill with 0:35 left and ticking. They took their time, passed it around the perimeter and back to Butz who immediately jumped up for a three-point attempt from the top corner and drained it to complete the comeback with under 17 seconds remaining.

With the clock running towards zero, Eau Claire was moving quickly up the court.

With 1 second remaining, they passed it outside to their top scorer on the night who pulled the trigger at the last possible moment. He let it go, and the buzzer rang. When it hit the rim and bounced up the collective breath of a full auditorium drew in and balanced on the precipice.

It fell wide, and the game went into overtime.

The atmosphere was electric, and the officials put 4:00 on the clock.

Eau Claire won the tip off, but halfway through OT, the score was still knotted up at 59. The Old Abes eventually struck first with a three-pointer putting the onus on River Falls to answer back with a big fly or to accept the one-point deficit and put up a deuce.

The Wildcats opted for two, but an uncalled foul under the net for contact on Butz as he attempted a basket allowed Eau Claire to take possession and score two more points. This increased their lead to five with 1:20 remaining in the third period forcing River Falls to play the foul game to try to control the clock and give their big shooters a chance to even the score.

This last-ditch desperation effort did not pay off, and the score at the end of a highly entertaining game of basketball was 68-61.

Butz was clearly the offensive player of the game, putting up 32 points including 16 of the 20 first half points for River Falls. In total, he logged 13-19 on field goals and led the team in three-pointers (4-6) and co-leading in steals (2).

Eli Johnson also had a nice game finishing one rebound shy of a double-double. Finally, Preston Johnson had a good night finishing third in scoring while co-leading in assists (4) and steals (2).

As a team, the Wildcats shot very well sinking 51% from the field and 38% on three’s, although the 33% on free throws isn’t up to their usual high standards. They also racked up 19 rebounds, eight steals and a whopping 15 assists on the night.

Head Coach Zac Campbell says the first half of the game was a gut check in terms of what they wanted to do. Their pregame plan didn’t get carried out, and then some shots just didn’t drop for them. However, the defense rallied in the second half behind the offensive output of Butz.

“We’re addressing this in practice, but we need to have the killer mindset immediately and not let the pace of the game dictate it. We really haven’t had a fast start to a game yet. We’ve made a lot of runs in the mid-first halves of games, but not in the first five minutes,” Campbell said. “A couple deflections early in the second half and Joey hitting a big three kind of gave us some confidence, and I think that carried over to the defensive side.”

Coach Campbell also notes that they got behind the 8-ball right away in overtime by not scoring first, which he says drastically lowers the chances of a victory.

“Scoring first in overtime is absolutely huge. It completely controls overtime. We got two defensive stops to start, and the offense got put in a good spot with a great look, it just didn’t fall,” Campbell said.

Butz says the team knew this was a big game for them, and although they really wanted the victory, they will use the loss as motivation.

“It was definitely a little scary at first. Getting down big wasn’t something we wanted to happen, but it did. I think the atmosphere helped us out though. All the people and all the noise helped us to get back to playing like ourselves and to kind of chip away at that lead,” Butz said. “Obviously we know how good we can play, and a conference championship is something we want. Since we’ve fallen back to second place now, we look at every conference game from now on as a must win, something we have to go get, and that starts Tuesday night.”

The Wildcats have two home games this week. The first of which is against Big Rivers rival Chippewa Falls on Tuesday, and then Holmen will come to town on Friday. Tip off for both of those games is 7:15.