The Ellsworth Panthers (3-4, 2-2) scheduled a tough end to the 2020 calendar year, with their final two games coming against opponents with over twice their enrollment.

After falling to Menomonie 55-46 on December 22nd, the Panthers hosted the River Falls Wildcats last Saturday. The Panthers fell, 77-47, but will hope to learn from the experience of playing a much larger opponent. The Wildcats have two seniors committed to play Division 2 basketball at the next level, with Zac Johnson committed to Augustana and Liam Dougherty committed to University of Mary while his twin brother JT has committed to playing for West Point, who competes in NCAA’s Division 1.

“I think it will benefit us in the long run,” Head Coach Jordan Petersen said. “Both teams have size that we will not see within our conference, so it was good to go against_that size and be able to match up and try some different things._ The games allowed us to continue to work on areas we need to continue to grow as well as show us areas where we need to get better.”

As the Panthers get back into conference play, they hope to bring what they learned in those two games with them.

“I don't not think those two losses negatively affected our confidence,” Petersen said._“It showed us even more so what we need to improve and really pushed guys to be more aggressive and work to improve._Our team is confident going into this week and we have set a standard for how we want to play, and we try to play up to that standard every night.”

Senior Mason Anderson continues to stay consistent this season and led all scorers with 21 points, while junior Jack Janke was close behind with 15.

But, according to his coach, Mason contributes more than just buckets to this Panther squad.

“Mason has grown tremendously as a leader the last three years._ He is our vocal leader who brings energy to every practice,” Petersen stated. “He does a great job of balancing getting on guys and mentoring them._ He is another coach on the court and in practice, so it helps us out a lot.”__ The Panthers traveled to Somerset (9-2, 3-1) on Tuesday to faceoff with the talented Spartans. Somerset’s only two losses came against Altoona in their first game of the season and at Prescott in early December. Ellsworth will be back on the court again one week later when they travel to New Richmond.

Photo by John McLoone.