Shoe’s on the other foot

DALTON — A year older, and perhaps a year wiser.

That’s the hope Leyton High School boys basketball coach Gary Oltmann is carrying with him as his Warriors make a return trip to the state finals in Lincoln this weekend.

LHS (21-1) enters the D2 Elite Eight as the top seed, whereas last year, the Warriors were the eighth and bottom seed, and were knocked off by top-seeded Howells, 60-46.

Oltmann recalls all too well last year’s quarterfinals loss to Howells.

“They were bigger than us, like 6-foot-7 and 6-5,” Oltmann said. “We had them down 41-40, with about three minutes left.

“We were thinking that if we could hit one more 3-pointer, we could spread this thing out.

“Well we missed it, got the rebound, and missed again, then went down to the other end, and gave them the old-fashioned three-point play. Then, we had to foul and whatever and it got away from us,” Oltmann said.

Fast-forward to Thursday morning’s quarters, where Leyton will wear the bull’s-eye against upstart Wauneta-Palisade (13-10), who assumes the eighth seed.

Comparing records in this matchup is akin to trying to distinguish snowflakes in a furnace. Indeed, the Broncos entered the state tournament series with a .500 record, but Dave Kuhlen’s club played a schedule that featured two other teams that have qualified for this week’s state finals: Paxton (D1), Southern Valley (C2).

Wauneta-Palisade was forced to overcome adversity from the very start, losing two starters to injury before practice took up in November.

“One players (Landon Jutten) came in with a season-ending injury to his shoulder,” Kuhlen said, “and Jacob Maris, who started a few games for us, suffered his third concussion, and he had to be shut down.”

That left the Broncos to go with an “iron five” lineup of seniors Logan Bischoff (6-2 center, 14.3 points, 9.4 rebounds), point guard Connor Kayton (10 points) and forward Jack McGraw (7.4), to mix with juniors Hayden Pollman (9.8 points) and Wes Anderjaska (8.7 points).

Weylin Davis, a senior, is W-P’s sixth man.

“He’s been playing a lot better for us lately,” Kuhlen said. “As a result, our other starters have picked up the scoring, and each of the five have had multiple games of scoring 15 points or more. When you look at February, we increased our scoring by 10 points a game.”

Oltmann noted that W-P hangs its defensive hat on pressure.

“From what we’ve seen, they run a full-court press out the 2-2-1,” Oltmann said, “and they have run 2-3 and 1-3-1 zones. We have seen no man-to-man sets in any of the four game videos we’ve seen. They do go six deep, and we’ve been told if they have to any further, they can get hurt. We do know Pollman and Kayton are their best 3-point shooters.”

Oltmann can probably go deeper on his bench if the situation dictates it, but his starting five of senior Sam Schumacher and juniors Brennen Cruise, Dylan Brenner, Chris Melzer and Alex W. Frerichs has been eating up the playing time, with sophomore Cody McKay emerging as the team’s sixth man.

The Warriors aren’t afraid to shoot from anywhere in a half-court set, even to the point of their “center”, the 5-11 Cruise, stepping out and shooting an occasional 3-pointer.

Schumacher, the team’s leader, said his team has unfinished business in Lincoln.

“After last year’s game, we’d come so close, and we were all upset about losing,” Schumacher said. “I was talking to Garrett (Westman, last year’s only senior) after the game.

“We knew we had done all we could against a heavily favored team like Howells, having the lead late and then watching it slip away. We knew we had done everything we could in that game.

“So, at the start of this season, we decided we were going to take the attitude of picking up from the point we were ahead of Howells, and go from there,” Schumacher said.

Leyton made it to the Elite Eight with its miraculous performance in the Sutherland D2-6 District finals, where it was forced to tie the game at the buzzer of the first two overtimes, before wearing down Sandhills/Thedford in the third extra session.

Oltmann said his team displayed a few new traits.

“We always knew the kids weren’t going to quit,” Oltmann said. “But they also showed how determined they were, and how positive they were about getting the job done.”

Schumacher said last year is done, and now his team is, by seed, the narrow choice to win the title Saturday afternoon.

“Winning state would mean everything,” Schumacher said “Especially with this group; Dylan, Brennen, Alex and I have been playing basketball together since we were in second grade.

“At times we would play among ourselves and think this is the state title game and we’d dream of playing in Lincoln, now we have the chance as a No. 1 seed to win it all.”

“It’s be everything for the entire team. We’ve been close since we’ve been yea tall, so to win it would be great,” Schumacher said.

Oltmann said he and his team should be a bit more eager this time around.

“We want to go down with the attitude that we’re not going down there to play one ball game.” Oltmann said. “We did that last year, played one and done, and we’d like to play three more.”

Thursday’s game with Wauneta-Palisade begins at 9 a.m. CT at North Star High School.