A three-school, five-town joint venture, Truman/Martin Luther/Granada-Huntley-East Chain is the team to beat in the boys Valley Conference West this season.
But the East-Side Clippers pulled ahead early and hung on for a 61-48 win over the visiting Jaguars on Friday.
Isaac Mueller said Cleveland’s group of seniors has made for a strong team this year and the victory was the most important to the program since he has been a starter.
“It’s probably the biggest win ever because we had a losing season the last two seasons, and this team is a big one.”
Head coach Dan Fredrickson agreed.
“This is one of the elite teams in our conference. These guys finished second in the conference last year. They had the ball roll out to otherwise win the conference championship. They return in their entire team. They do a nice job running their stuff. It’s a well-coached team. It’s a team with a lot of length.”
Last year, the Clippers lost on the road to the Jaguars 50-35. While the Clippers have been powerful on offense in their three prior games and had the home-court advantage on Friday, Fredrickson thought beforehand it could go either way.
“It’s a 50-50 game no question. The way they guarded last year, I knew we would have to shoot the ball well...that 1-2-2 defense...how long they were. We were going to have to make shots. It was very encouraging, the end of the Lake Crystal game and the game against Madelia, watching us make shots, seeing what we saw in practice from Elijah (Sullivan), Jackson (Meyer), Eric (Rohlfing), Isaac (Mueller) hitting those outside shots. It started happening in the games, so if you are going to play guys like we did tonight, we had to jump out to that early lead.”
But Fredrickson said ultimately, the Clipper defense was the decider.
“We won that game defensively in that 11 or 12 minutes, where we kind of took their heart and held them to eight points for an extended period of time. I wanted Ben (Holden) and Eric on the bottom and they did a tremendous job down there, and then Isaac in that first half was playing man-to-man against (6-6 junior Adam) Heckman and held him to four points. He’s an All-Conference player since he’s been a freshman, so to hold him to four points is incredible.”
On a steal and drive to the hoop, the Jaguars scored the first basket. A Holden jumper tied the game 2-2.
The Jags scored the next two baskets before Holden rebounded and scored and Mueller arced in a three-point basket. Just under five minutes in, the Clippers were ahead 7-6.
Deliberate back on their end of the court, the Jaguars would sometimes burn a minute or more of clock before shooting, but the Clipper defense was solid.
“Our thing was make them have to play against a set defense,” Fredrickson said. “We want to get to the other end of the floor with the most number of people. I felt if we could keep the ball in front of us, the way we were guarding the post tonight, I felt like we were going to have them make some plays, make some shots over the top of us. Offensively, when we got the board, the way Isaac was able to run the basketball out…if we could get this game going up and down, open it up, I didn’t think they had the horses to finish it off. They are a grind-it-out, high-low type of team.”
Holden took an Alex McCabe handoff inside for a basket, and Eric Rohlfing drove through the paint for a score, and with a Sullivan jump shot, the Clippers pulled in front 14-6. Rohlfing took an in-bound pass up and in from the corner for three points and then drove for two more. With a trey off the hands of Sullivan, the Clippers were ahead 22-10.
After Holden baskets, the Clippers, ahead 30-16, had their largest lead at the break.
On a two and a three, the Jaguars scored the first five points of the second half. Later, after a couple of threes, they pulled within eight points.
“They did create some issues when they started hitting those three pointers,” Fredrickson said. “That helped keep them in the game.”
But Rohlfing sunk a basket from three-point land and then scored on a spin cycle underneath the net. From there, the Clippers started to diminish the pace with about six minutes left.
“I thought if we could get Eric and Isaac up top, spread the floor, plus we were in the bonus,” Fredrickson said. “But the kids get antsy. They want to speed things up a little bit. They want to play. They felt more comfortable than I did.”
With a three from Holden at about the five-minute mark, the Clippers were up 49-35.
“I’m on the bench saying we don’t need it, we don’t need it, and then Ben buries it,” Fredrickson said.
“I wanted us to burn the time a little more there. I wanted us to be a little more deliberate.”
Thirty seconds later, Mueller, fighting hard on defense inside, picked up his fourth foul, but he never left the game. The Clippers gave up the ball a couple times down the stretch, including once on an in-bounds, but they made enough free throws to keep the Jaguars at bay.
“It was a signature win,” Fredrickson said.
In a physical 36 minutes, the Jaguars committed two offensives fouls the first half and one in the second, but the Clippers didn’t convert any of the resulting turnovers. The Clippers were also penalized with one offensive foul.
Rohlfing led all scorers with 24 points. Holden had 19 points and a dozen rebounds. Meyer was the only Clipper off the bench. Heckman, the Jaguar’s leading scorer, had 15 points and fouled out with about a minute in the game.
In other conference action on Friday, St. Clair, ranked number 2 in the state, beat Madelia 88-72. MCW beat JWP 62-44, and Nicollet beat Alden-Conger 82-39. In the West, Nicollet, MCW, LCWM and Madelia follow the Jaguars in order. In the East, St. Clair has played one less game than Cleveland but is 3-0. Loyola, JWP and Alden-Conger follow.
The Clippers take on non-conference TCU in Montgomery on Tuesday.
Cleveland 30 31 61
T/ML/GHEC 16 32 48
Points 61 (Ben Holden 19, Eric Rohlfing 24, Isaac Mueller 7, Alex McCabe 6, Elijah Sullivan 5)
Assists 12 (Holden 1, Rohlfing 1, Mueller 4, Sullivan 4, McCabe 2)
Rebounds 27 (Holden 12, Rohlfing 7, Mueller 2, McCabe 2, Sullivan 3, Jackson Meyer 1)
Steals 8 (Holden 1, Rohlfing 2, Mueller 1, McCabe 3, Sullivan 1)
Blocks 5 (Rohlfing 2, Mueller 2, Meyer 1)
Turnovers 6
2FG 14-27 (52%)
3FG 5-17 (29%) (Holden 2, Rohlfing 1, Mueller 3, Meyer 2, Sullivan 2)
FT 18-27 (67%)
Alex McCabe takes the ball down court after a steal.
Back from missing a half a game with a knee injury, Eric Rohlfing led all scorers with 24 points.