Totino Grace picked up wins over both Cloquet and Esko to win the Wood City Classic basketball tournament last week. T-G defeated Cloquet in their opening game 65-54 and then they downed Esko in the title game 67-42.
"It was a good tournament as whole," mentioned Cloquet coach Steve Battaglia. "Every game was competitive with the game being decided in the final five minutes or so."
In Cloquet's opening round loss to Totino, the Jacks fell behind by 10 points at halftime and struggled until the second half.
Cloquet had trouble finding an answer for Micah Koehn who finished with a game-high 30 points. Koehn was deadly from the outside as he hit six three-pointers in the game.
Andy Kochneff did his best to keep things close for the Jacks with a big 24-point night, Ryan Erkilla added 12 points, both Mike Campbell and Cory Koning each scored eight and Chad Calcaterra finished with two points.
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Paul Hipp was also in double-figure scoring for Totino Grace with 10 points.
- Esko won their opening game of the tournament 55-54 over Grand Rapids despite a big comeback by the Thunderhawks in the second half.
The Eskomos had a nine-point lead, but struggled to hold off the Thunderhawks in the second stanza. Scott Lindquist was Esko's point leader with 17, Jake Olson added 13, Jeremy Syjanen finished with 11, Kevin Rengo recorded nine, Tyler LeRoux and Micah Tengesdahl each finished with two, and Ryan Eskuri scored a point.
Brandon Moberg led Grand Rapids with 19 points and was the only Thunderhawk in double figures.
- In the championship game Totino Grace led by nine at the half and then extended that margin to a 62-47 final score against the Eskomos.
Esko did a good job of slowing down Koehn, who finished with 13 points, but Hipp scored 15, Bobby Anderson added nine, Luke Thompson and Andrew Million each scored eight, Dan Spiess recorded seven, and Mike Cafferty had two points in a balanced effort.
The Eskomos were led by Tengesdahl and Rengo who had 12 and 11 points, respectively, Scott Lindquist added nine, Brian Lindquist scored six, Syjanen finished with three, Olson and LeRoux both score a pair of points and Jamie Stokes scored a point.
- Cloquet fell 61-48 to Grand Rapids in the third-place game as Ryan Gibeau and Brandon Moberg led the Thunderhawks with 19 and 18 points, respectively.
"We dropped two games that we had chances to win," said a reflective Battaglia. "We didn't play particularly well, but we also didn't play particularly terrible, either."
Kochneff continued with a hot hand for the Jacks with 21 points, Campbell scored 12, Justin Schmitz finished with seven, Koning had four and both Ryan Lindstrom and Erkilla had a pair of points.
"We need to shoot better and defend harder in order to win some more games," explained Battaglia. "We're making some strides in some areas, but we haven't put everything together yet. On a positive note we are competing against some good teams."
Pine Journal sports reporter Kerry Rodd can be contacted at: kdrodd@aol.com .
