Osage overcomes Saint length for victory

By Kristi Nixon

ST. ANSGAR — Even with Osage a heavy favorite in this Top of Iowa East boys basketball game, all coaches involved knew this was not going to be an easy one.

Green Devils’ head man Mike Brahn could see that the Saints’ length would give his team some fits. Even so, his team pulled away late for a double-digit, 59-47, win on Tuesday, Dec. 5.

“It’s always going to be (a battle) with those guys,” Brahn said. “They do a nice job, but just a ton of size and length and we knew that was going to be a problem for us. Just doing our best to keep the ball out of the middle and force a lot of long contested shots, that were going to end up in long rebounds, that they were going to have a better of than short of the rim stuff.”

Even though this game was the “worst” shooting percentage the Green Devils had, they still were 21-of-55 from the field and 9-of-21 from beyond the three-point line. Osage was 38.2 percent overall, 42.9 from beyond the arch.

“They’re a hell of a team,” St. Ansgar co-coach Jason Squier said. “We executed our game plan the way we wanted to. Obviously, they are a very hard team to stop offensively. That’s what it comes down to: they have three amazing shooters. We did a good job of shutting down one, and then (a different) one goes off. That is what it is. We knew what we had to do defensively, game-plan wise, and we did a pretty good job. Just at some crucial times, we had some shots that didn’t drop, and that’s the difference.”

More on this story, and more photos will be found in the Dec. 13 print and e-editions of the Enterprise Journal.