Tigers take home silver ball from state tourney

MADISON – The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.
The Marshfield Tigers experienced both within a 24-hour time span, at the WIAA State Boys Basketball Tournament March 21-22 at the Kohl Center in Madison.
The Tigers first defeated Waunakee 57-47, in a Div. 1 state semifinal on March 21, before falling to defending champion Wisconsin Lutheran 57-55, in the championship contest the next night.
“It hurts,” said Tigers Head Coach Chris Fischer, following Marshfield’s two-point loss in the title tilt. “I’m trying to sit here and put on a brave face, but it hurts,” he added. “If the game’s thirty-five minutes long we’re celebrating a state championship. We didn’t do enough to finish it out. I knew our best was and is state championship worthy. We were worthy, with our performance, of a state championship.”
Those comments came shortly after the Tigers — with 36 seconds left in regulation — surrendered a lead they had held since the 2:36 mark of the first half.

With just over three minutes left in regulation, the Tigers went into a stall offensively, trying to play keep-away long enough to run some time off the clock, force the Vikings to start fouling and make some bonus free throws at the end to win it.
The game plan didn’t work.
“You’re really looking to get a layup or you’re looking to get to the free throw line,” Fischer explained afterwards. “I should’ve pulled the trigger on a couple timeouts when we got in trouble, but it wasn’t anything abnormal to what we’ve faced in the last few weeks here. You trust your guys.
“Wisconsin Lutheran’s got some long athletes and they got their hands on some deflections. They made a couple more plays than we did. Inopportune turnovers. You come up one possession short, and as a coach you’ll probably be replaying a lot of those possessions for the rest of your life. It’s humbling and it’s tough to swallow right now.”
After Landon Lee was fouled three times in the span of 34 seconds, Marshfield was still two Lutheran fouls away from the bonus.
As the Tigers went back into their half court offense, Chris Pohl had the ball knocked away by Kager Knueppel.
Josiah Rice grabbed the loose ball and found teammate Isaiah Mellock in transition, who then fed it to Zavier Zens for a fast-break layup, as the Vikings pulled to within one.
Another Marshfield turnover just moments later led to another layup by Zens with 36 seconds remaining, giving the Vikings a lead they would not surrender.
With 18 seconds left, the Tigers had the ball down by one.
Trying to set up a game-winning score, Lee drove in on Rice, trying to penetrate the lane, perhaps looking to drive and kick the ball out to an open shooter, likely Brooks Hinson, who was free on the left wing.
Rice, however, reached in and stole the ball from Lee, who then fouled Rice with 3.9 seconds remaining.
Hinson then fouled Zens on the ensuing inbounds play. Zens, however, missed the front end of a one-and-one bonus free throw situation, and Hinson grabbed the rebound.
The Tigers had the ball back with 2.9 seconds on the clock and still down by just one.
Following a timeout, Marshfield had to inbound the basketball from one end of the court to the other.
A three-quarter-court inbounds pass by Joey Ketterer went off the fingertips of Pohl near the opposite free throw line and the loose ball was grabbed by Lutheran’s Alex Greene, who made one of two free throws with 1.3 seconds on the clock.
Zens grabbed the rebound after Greene’s miss and time ran out on the Tigers.
“The two guys sitting next to me, I can’t say enough for what they’ve done for me, for the program, for our community,” Fischer said, as he sat between Hinson and Lee at their post-game press conference. “They’re the epitome of what you want in a student-athlete. They’ve made people care about basketball in the city of Marshfield. There are going to be young boys in our town tomorrow picking up a basketball and shooting in their driveway trying to be the next Landon Lee or the next Brooks Hinson,” Fischer added. “I’m eternally grateful to the both of them. They believed in me as a coach when I didn’t necessarily believe in myself.”
Lee led all scorers in the championship game, with 22 points on 9-for-12 shooting from the floor, including 4-for-6 from three-point range.
Hinson, who averaged 16.9 points per game going into the contest, was held to just five against Wisconsin Lutheran. Chris Pohl had 10 points, while Joey Ketterer added eight, Camden Kolstad six and Valin Ramberg four.
The Tigers led for nearly 20 of the game’s 36 minutes. There were just six lead changes and two ties along the way.
The night before, the Tigers punched their ticket to championship Saturday with a 57-47 semifinal win over Waunakee.
With 9:35 left in the first half, Marshfield grabbed a lead — the only lead change of the game — they would not surrender.
The Tigers led for nearly 30 of the game’s 36 minutes.
Marshfield was led in scoring in the semifinal round by Hinson, who scored 18 on 4-for-8 shooting from the floor, including 3-for-4 from three-point range.
Pohl added 17 points, while Lee chipped in nine, Kolstad six, Ketterer three and Ramberg and Ethan Knecht two points apiece.
This year’s Tigers team was the first from Marshfield in 85 years to play for a state high school basketball championship.
The 1940 team beat Soldiers Grove, 29-27, in the first round, which featured 16 teams.
The Tigers then knocked off Shorewood, 20-16, in what was called the Championship Series, before beating Neenah, 18-17, in the semifinals.
Marshfield lost to Shawano, 23-22, in the finals.
Marshfield would have to then wait another 54 years before making another state tournament appearance.
The 11-14 Tigers, led by Head Coach Gordie Sisson, qualified for the 1994 state tournament, losing to Stevens Point in the quarterfinals, 56-50.
“I remember, we would’ve had to win state tournament to be over .500,” Sisson said, as we talked prior to Marshfield’s win over Waunakee March 21 at the Kohl Center in Madison. “We had had about four or five games that we lost by a total of about 8 points, a lot of injuries that year and a nice team, but nothing phenomenal, but special in their own way.
“They believed that they could beat anybody and they pulled it together at the right time. We had a couple of overtime games in the regional and sectional. We shot 100% from the free throw line a couple of times I think and we got a chance to come down here. It wasn’t against a team I wanted to play. It was against SPASH (Stevens Point Area Senior High). I’d like to have played Fond du Lac or anybody else, but SPASH went on to win the state tournament, and there’s no shame in that.
“What’s important is that people start believing that they can compete and that they can go down to something like this, and Chris (Fischer) has done a phenomenal job of instilling that belief in this current group of Tigers, and I’m really, really proud of him,” Sisson said of his former player.
The Tigers finished this season 23-7, following a 4-4 start.
Along the way, Brooks Hinson became Marshfield’s all-time leading scorer.