Top-five matchup
Johnson, Diener show experience
Wauwatosa — It took coach Tom Diener a few years to put together a team with this kind of experience and Friday night it showed the wait has been worth it.
Cedarburg scored a 7871 victory over Wisconsin Lutheran at Wisconsin Lutheran College as 6-foot-5 senior guard Jordan Johnson scored 27 points and junior guard John Diener added 18. Beyond individual performances, however, the key for the Bulldogs was their ability to bounce back from a shaky end to the first half and down the stretch to remain patient on offense and play relatively clean ball.
Cedarburg (7-0) closed the game with points on eight of its final 10 possessions. The Bulldogs went 5 for 6 from three-point range in the second half and hit 20 of 21 free throws.
“We stayed composed throughout the whole game,” said Johnson, one of a handful of Bulldogs with at least three years of varsity experience. “We closed out the game really well, hit free throws to win the game, got stops and did what we needed to do to pull it out.”
The nonconference matchup pitted two of the area’s top teams. Cedarburg is ranked third by the Journal Sentinel and Wisconsin Lutheran is fifth. In the wissports.net Division 2 state coaches poll, Cedarburg is fourth and Lutheran is 10th.
The largest lead was six points for each side until Cedarburg stretched its advantage to seven in the final minute. There were seven lead changes and four ties in the second half.
Senior guard OJ James finished with 16 points for Wisconsin Lutheran but just four in the second half. Senior guard Marcellus Duckworth had 13, nine in the second half. Quincy Minor, a junior guard, and Brunard Williams, a junior forward, had 12 points each.
A basket by Lutheran junior forward Jachon Bivens-Crowder gave Wisconsin Lutheran a 51-50 lead. The next time down the floor Johnson buried a deep three to give the Bulldogs a 53-51 advantage.
The sequence marked the last lead change of the night, though the game would be tied at 60-60 with 5 minutes 27 seconds to play.
Two free throws by Diener and another three by Johnson, however, pushed the lead 65-60 with 3:28 left. The three was a backbreaker with Cedarburg patiently working the ball and eventually rotating the ball to Johnson at the top of the key. Swish! “I told the guys after the game that we didn’t take one bad shot,” Tom Diener said. “We work very hard on our motion offense, working to get the very best shot that we can. I thought from start to finish we read the defense correctly, took what the defense gave us and just made great plays all night.”
Milwaukee Lutheran 58, Kettle Moraine Lutheran 53: In the first game, the Red Knights snapped a three-game losing streak, but not before losing all but two points of a 20-point lead.
In the final minute, however, Lutheran (5-4) got two free throws each from juniors Thomas Datka, Kaleb Tatum and Damikius Merriweather to help put the game away. But the victory wasn’t assured until sophomore K.J. Daniel blocked Grant Biesterfeld’s three-point try with 2.4 seconds left.
“We got outplayed the last 12 minutes,” Milwaukee Lutheran coach Jim Datka said. “It’s almost unfair because I didn’t think we deserved to win to be honest with you.”
Daniel, a 6-1 sophomore guard, finished with 3 threes and a team-high 11 points for Milwaukee Lutheran. Senior guard Connor Smith, junior center Isaiah Owens and junior center Emanuel Brookshire added eight points each.
Junior forward Zach Zuleger had 11 points for Kettle Moraine Lutheran (2-4) and senior guard Joe Behm added 10.
The victory assured Milwaukee Lutheran of at least a .500 record heading into the new year.