For the second time this season, the battle on the Sevastopol High School basketball court will take a back seat to a much more important fight off it.
Monday’s boys basketball game between Sevastopol and Gibraltar will be played in honor of 8-year-old Violet Tanck, a Sevastopol Elementary School student who was recently diagnosed with a rare form of Ewing sarcoma. The third-grader has already had a kidney and some lymph nodes removed and has months of chemotherapy and radiation treatments ahead at Children’s Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
Both teams are coming off losses on Friday. The Pioneers fell short against Algoma 66-51. Sevastopol was trailing by just two at the break, but was then outscored 37-24 in the second creating more distance that they couldn't recover from. Bo Tanck and Reid Kacmarynski combined for 28, but it wasn't enough to close the gap. The Pioneers have split their last four games. Cash Kuehn leads the Pioneers in scoring at 12.2 ppg while Logan Schuh leads the squad in rebounds (6.1 rpg) and assists (2.7 apg).
In Peshtigo, two separate offensive droughts sent the Vikings to a 72-45 loss to Peshtigo on Friday night. The Vikings held their own early thanks to 3-pointers from Marco Jauregui, Kayin Jackson and Aaron Brey. The Bulldogs blew the game open late in the first half with a 15-0 run led by Baxter that put them ahead 40-26 at the break. Despite some early buckets from the Bulldogs, the Vikings were able to threaten early in the second half, forcing a timeout when they trimmed the lead to nine points with just over 14 minutes left. Peshtigo would not allow another Vikings field goal the rest of the game. Brey paced the Vikings with 14 points, Jauregui added 10 and Wyatt Bultman chipped in nine.
To support Violet and her family, a bake and soup sale, a miracle minute, a free-throw competition and paper butterfly sales will take place during Monday night’s slate of basketball games. The JV tips off at 5:30 p.m., followed by the varsity game at 7 p.m.
Tim Kowols will have the call on 105.1 The GOAT beginning at 6:45 p.m.
Click here to listen to our interview with Gibraltar head coach Travis Ward
Click here to listen to our interview with Sevastopol head coach Tom Ash
