Bulldogs lose thriller at home

By Erik Buchinger

The Bulldogs lost to Seymour 76-72 at home in a back-and-forth Bay Conference matchup on Thursday, Feb. 8.

New London head coach Kurt Schommer said this was among the most intense games his team has played this season.

“It’s always a battle with Seymour, and that’s how basketball games should be,” Schommer said. “I love those types of games, but somebody has to win and somebody has to lose.”

The game featured 24 3-pointers made with Seymour knocking down 15 shots from long range.

New London’s Kyle Wolf scored a game-high 19 points with five 3-pointers. Will Wohlt made three 3-pointers in the first half and finished with 18 points, and Brady Rodgers added 18 points for the Bulldogs.

With a large crowd in attendance and a loud student section, Schommer said it had a feeling of a big game.

“The atmosphere here was great,” Schommer said. “Our fans were great. It’s disappointing to come up short against a good basketball team this late in the season.”

The first half included plenty of lead changes, and the Bulldogs went into halftime with a 39-35 lead.

New London went on an 11-4 run to start the second half to extend its advantage to 50-39, but Seymour came right back and scored 23 of the game’s next 29 points to take a 62-56 lead.

“Basketball is a game of runs, and it always will be,” Schommer said. “They went on their run, we went on ours and it’s back and forth game. You’ve just got to extend those runs as long as you can. When they make their runs back at you, you’ve got to find a way to get stops and contest all their shots, forcing them into tough shots.”

Rodgers scored on a put back to tie the game up at 64, and the Bulldogs had the lead late, but a Seymour 3-pointer put the Thunder ahead 69-67.

Trailing 73-71 with 30 seconds left, Rodgers made 1 of 2 free throws to cut the lead to one, but two Seymour free throws gave the Thunder a 75-72 lead.

The Bulldogs called a timeout with 13 seconds left, but Will Wohlt’s contested 3-pointer fell short, and another Seymour free throw sealed the victory for the Thunder.

“It was a tough game,” Schommer said. “Obviously it didn’t go the way we wanted it to toward the end. Seymour is a good basketball team, and they made some contested shots in the second half that I thought we had pretty good defense on.”

New London dropped to 11-7 overall this season including 7-4 in the conference. The Bulldogs are in a three-way tie for second place with Seymour and West De Pere.

Schommer said he was happy with the effort his team showed despite the loss.

“Our guys played hard,” Schommer said. “I was really proud of them, and we’re going to move on and learn from it. We’ve got another game Tuesday.”

The Bulldogs will play Green Bay East on the road Tuesday, Feb. 13 at 7 p.m.