Tosa East proves its status as a contender The Lightning strike
BROOKFIELD - There isn’t much more that Wauwatosa East could have done in the season’s first three weeks to show it is a legitimate contender in both the Greater Metro Conference and Division 1.
First, there was a season-opening win over Sussex Hamilton, which at the time had a healthy Patrick Baldwin Jr. Then came a win over highly touted Menomonee Falls.
Friday night may have been the Red Raiders’ strongest statement yet. Tosa East went into Brookfield East and maintained its unblemished record in the toughest conference in the state with a convincing 72-56 victory.
The game showed just why the Red Raiders are so dangerous.
First, they are incredibly balanced. All five starters scored at least 12 points, with none scoring more than Leon Bond’s 17. They have the deepest starting lineup in the conference, with each player able to create on offense and defend multiple positions.
Few players in the state are more bouncy than Bond, a junior who threw down a pair of dunks Friday night. A Division I recruit, Bond’s athleticism also extends to the defensive end, where he provides strong help-side defense and rebounds well.
Marcus Mbow, Tosa East’s 6-foot-6 and 300-pound center, added 16 points against the Spartans. Mbow is a highly regarded football recruit headed to Purdue next season and you can see why that’s the case when he’s on the hardwood. He doesn’t play like a 300-pound big man, showing off the handle of a guard, passing well and scoring from different angles.
Guard Brian Parzych had 12 points but is the most active of the Red Raiders on the floor. He creates offensively, swarms on help-side defense, is the team’s most dangerous shooting threat and seems to wind up on the floor every other possession.
Another guard, Jay Hinson Jr., has taken perhaps the biggest leap on the team, going from 6.4 points per game last year as a junior to 14.2 this year, including 15 on Friday. Like all of Tosa East’s starting five, he is dangerous when headed toward the rim and has active hands on defense.
Charles Alexander Singleton rounds out the lineup with more length (6foot-6) and athleticism, which he showcased on a baseline dunk against Brookfield East. He joins Parzych, Bond and Hinson in averaging at least 14 points per game.
Here are two more takeaways from the week in high school boys basketball:
On Tuesday night, Brandin Podziemski picked up a scholarship offer from Illinois after his 36-point performance, but it was Luke Haertle and Lake Country Lutheran that downed Podziemski’s St. John’s Northwestern team, 82-79, in a showdown of two of the better Division 3 squads in the state.
Haertle not only chased Podziemski around on defense for most of the night, but matched his counterpart with 36 points.
It was an impressive showing from Haertle, who added 11 rebounds, four assists and four steals as he surpassed 1,000 career points as a junior. He attacked the rim aggressively, displayed excellent body control and got to the line 14 times.
“He played a really, really good game tonight,” Lake Country Lutheran head coach Mark Newman said.
Podziemski displayed once again why he’s one of the top players in the state and earned offers from Kentucky and Kansas before Illinois’ interest. He scored 26 points in the second half, becoming the go-to player down the stretch and burying looks from all over with multiple defenders on him. Podziemski is averaging 34.9 points through seven games.
Tanner’s time
Another player scoring at a remarkable clip is Sussex Hamilton senior guard Tanner Resch, who is helping keep his team afloat following star forward Patrick Baldwin Jr.’s high ankle sprain.
Resch dropped 49 points in an upset of Brookfield East on Tuesday night and followed it up with 33 points in a slowertempo game against Wauwatosa West that his team won in overtime, 74-68.
Resch is averaging 38 points in four games since Baldwin’s injury, accounting for nearly half (47.8%) of the Chargers’ scoring in that stretch and going 3-1.