By Reagan Hoverman

After the River Falls Wildcats boys basketball team’s 7651 blowout victory at home against New Richmond on Saturday, Jan. 29, RFHS head coach Zac Campbell said that his team is “trending in the right direction” with less than one month remaining before the playoffs begin.

In the eyes of coach Campbell, things are starting to come together for River Falls. The Saturday night Big Rivers Conference matchup between the Tigers and the Wildcats was an important game in terms of the conference title race. With the win, River Falls improved its overall record to 14-3, and its conference record to 7-2 for the year, with the only two losses coming against Memorial.

As for the Old Abes, Eau Claire Memorial suffered its first Big Rivers Conference loss of the season on Friday, Jan. 28, on the road against Hudson. Although Hudson and River Falls are rivals, the Raiders did the Wildcats a favor by beating Memorial on Friday night. The win gave River Falls hope for the conference title race which will likely come down to the final weeks of the regular season.

While Hudson was helping out River Falls on Friday night, River Falls was helping itself out by putting on a dominant display during the home game against New Richmond. After falling behind 6-0 in the opening two minutes of action, the Wildcats put together a sixminute 19-2 scoring run that culminated in a three-pointer by senior center Kaden Rowekamp.

Rowekamp’s deep three forced a timeout by New Richmond head coach Ryan Leis in an attempt to stop a scoring run that put River Falls in complete control of the game. Perhaps the most impressive portion of the first half was Rowekamp’s performance. He was nearly unstoppable in the post as he backed down defenders and made layups. Coach Campbell spoke about Rowekamp’s performance.

“That’s the Kaden (Rowekamp) that we know we have,” Campbell said. “He battled some illness and when he came back from it his legs weren’t underneath him and he struggled with some confidence in the last month. But he can finish it and he’s a thick body. When we get that, it changes a lot of stuff for us and allows us to play inside out.”

The inside-out game that Campbell spoke about was critical in the Wildcats’ success on Saturday night against the Tigers of New Richmond. Rowekamp’s inside post work, as well as the Wildcats’ threepoint shooting contributed to the 35-23 halftime lead for River Falls. At the break, Rowekamp and senior point guard Michael Schurman led the scoring charge for the Wildcats with each player having 11 points.

In the second half, River Falls continued its impressive play. The Wildcats outscored New Richmond 15-7 in the opening five minutes of the second half which gave River Falls a 50-30 advantage with just under 13 minutes left in regulation.

One of the standout plays from the 15-7 run was an assist from the aforementioned Schurman. After attacking the bucket and running into a wall of Tiger defenders, Schurman made an impressive skip pass to the wing, which found senior guard Jack Hirstein who stepped up and buried a threepointer. The momentum from that play and the overall scoring run by River Falls carried the Wildcats to a 76-51 victory against the New Richmond Tigers. After the game, Campbell spoke about Hirstein and Schurman.

“I think it’s important to note that Michael (Schurman) has to guard CJ (Campbell),” Zac Campbell said. “While CJ doesn’t move a lot, Michael’s defensive assignment is mentally taxing, and then to ask him to come run the flow for us, he played downhill and on balance for us. When you see a guy like (Jack) Hirstein step up and hit shots, he got those open looks because we had them on their heels defensively.”

One word that Zac Campbell used repeatedly was “flow,” which he has said is a key to his team’s offense. In the Saturday night victory, he was more than pleased with the flow of the offense, and the scoreboard reflected his sentiments.

“I think we played with really good flow,” Zac Campbell said after the win. “We’ve got guys who have held on to the ball a little too long and it kills the action. We had really good flow tonight.”

While offense is important, it’s not the whole game. River Falls was stout defensively, and Schurman held New Richmond’s CJ Campbell to 17 total points, well below his 22.9 points per game average for the season. Zac Campbell spoke about the defensive gameplay around guarding CJ Campbell, a senior guard who has outside shooting ability and has an athletic 6’7” body frame.

“(CJ Campbell) is a guy that can stretch it from deep,” Zac Campbell said. “Michael Schurman’s job is to take away straight-line drives and contest all shots from the volleyball line in, that was our scout. He’s going to hit those shots, but we just need to have a hand up. He has a tendency to drive left and spin back right in the midrange. So, we had guys dive hard on him when he drove left.”

While River Falls scored 76 total points, no individual player had more than 19 points. Schurman led the charge with 19, which was followed by Jacob Landgraf’s 14, Rowekamp’s 13, and Hirstein’s 11. Zac Campbell spoke about everyone getting in on the action and the scoring being relatively balanced throughout the rotation.

“We’re at our best when we have a bunch of guys at around 10 points per game,” Zac Campbell said. “While it’s fun to see a guy get into the 20s, and there are teams that need that, we don’t need that. We need a bunch of guys to contribute their 10 points, and that’s when we’re at our best.”

While there are still approximately three weeks left in the regular season, Zac Campbell said that in the next week or so, the playoffs and the potential bracket matchups begin to enter into his mind regularly.

“To be honest, probably after next week, because we’ve got Hudson on Thursday, which is a huge rivalry game,” Zac Campbell said. “Then on Saturday we’ve got Rice Lake, which is probably the team that is one or two spots below us in seeding, so probably after that Rice Lake game is when we start really thinking about the playoffs.”

That important conference rivalry game against Hudson on Thursday, Feb. 3, is slated to begin at 7:15 p.m. The Saturday night game on the road against Rice Lake will

Photo by Reagan Hoverman

Photo by Reagan Hoverman

Jack Hirstein of the River Falls High School boys basketball team makes a triple threat move against a New Richmond defender. Hirstein finished the game with 11 points.