Jays split pair of NLC games this week

The Three Lakes boys basketball team split two Northern Lakes Conference games last week, as the team traveled to Laona-Wabeno last Monday and hosted Florence in Three Lakes last Thursday. 

L-W swept the regular-season series with the Bluejays, taking a 65-51 win to remain undefeated in conference play. Three Lakes bounced back from that loss and finished the regular season sweep of Florence, as the Jays beat the Wildcats 83-52 to move to 6-2 in the conference standings. Three Lakes has finished first or second in the conference in three of the last four seasons. 

Head Coach George Lurvey talked after the game about the win and how the game plan changed from the previous time these two teams faced less than two weeks ago. “It was a great win. I think the biggest thing was we finally got our post player going,” Lurvey said. “That was his career game. We’ve been trying to use a post player, but it just hasn’t been clicking. When we played them in Florence, we hit 17 3-pointers in that game. We knew we probably couldn’t duplicate that.” 

Junior Nolan Waltz, a standout cross country runner for the Bluejays, finished with 27 points in the win. Easton Lurvey led the team with 28 points. 

The Jays got to work in the first half and utilized their players on the block, which helped Three Lakes gain a 44-32 advantage by halftime. 

Lurvey mentioned that the team's focus in that first half was to shoot less and look inside. 

“Basically, it was to shoot fewer threes and pound it into the post,” he stated. “And we were going to look for fast breaks if they were there, but then slow it down, move the ball from side to side and see if we could get the post open.” 

Three Lakes opened the second half on a 10-2 burst before Florence hit a 3-pointer. That put the score at 54-37 in favor of the Jays. They continued to hold that 20-point advantage throughout much of the second before extending it out to 24 and above with about six minutes left to play. 

With two weeks left in the regular season, Lurvey said the remaining schedule will test the team in good ways ahead of the postseason, as they are carrying plenty of momentum as winners of seven of their last eight after last week’s slate. The Jays had Bowler Monday of this week and Iron Mountain on Thursday, Feb. 19, before playing a D4 Edgar team on Friday, Feb. 20 , at a 15-4 Mellen team next Monday and will host a 16-4 Flambeau team in the season finale on Thursday, Feb. 26. 

“We have on paper three extremely difficult games coming. I think we’re going to compete in all three of them,” explained Lurvey. “It’s a look we need before playoffs.”