'Muth still rolling

Eagles ride four players in double-figures to win over Freeland

By Nick Brzezinski
29 February 2008

greatlakeshoops.com

Essexville-- When a team has multiple ways to play, multiple ways to score, and multiple threats on the court at the same time, they are awful
dangerous. Throw in the best player in the state on top of that and Freeland found all this out the hard way as Frankenmuth won the district crown with an 83-52 victory.

Brad Redford and the Frankenmuth Eagles came out firing from the get-go and jumped out to a 10-point lead late in the first quarter.

An inside lay-up and a Nick Shelton steal and a lay-up all in the last 10 seconds of the first quarter put Frankenmuth up by a score of 25-11 and the Eagles and their fans were going crazy.

Redford who matched Freeland with 11 first quarter points hit a 3-pointer with 4:50 remaining to put Frankenmuth up 40-16. Freeland called a timeout and regrouped to cut the lead to 20 by halftime, 49-29, but the rout was on.

After an up-and-down first half, Frankenmuth slowed down the pace and passed the ball around until they got an open look, most of the time for a lay-up which really frustrated the Falcons and extended their lead to 68-45. Redford, who only had four third quarter points, got a lot of help from his running mates in Shelton, Jeremy Warnemuende and Ryan Keith.

With a 23-point lead to start the fourth quarter, the Eagles did more of the same, sometimes holding the ball for 30-45 seconds before even looking to score. The Eagles went on to win by 31 over a 15-win Freeland team as Redford finished with 33.

Warnemuende hit five 3-pointers for 15 pointers; Shelton had 14 points and Keith had 12 points to lead the four eagles in double-figures.

Freeland had three players in double figures with Sophomore Joe Ruhlman and Will Griffin scoring 13 points and Taylor Schriber had 11 points.
With the victory Frankenmuth moves on to the Alma Regional where they will play Belding who beat Portland, 59-56.

Game Notes

--Tonight’s game was a tale of two halves. Frankenmuth ran up and down the court for the whole first half. In the second half they let the air out of the ball and still scored 34 second points. A team that can play multiple styles is going to be a tough out the remainder of the way in the tournament. While everyone expects Redford to score his points, tonight three other Eagles stepped up.

--Redford who struggled in shooting from the outside at times, found a way to get to the hole and draw fouls as well. That is a sign of a great player; when the outside shot is not falling he still finds ways to score.

--The play got a little physical in the end and one of the Freeland players thought it would be a good idea to walk right over Redford when he was lying on the floor. This got the crowd a little fired up but for the most part everyone behaved except for a few in the crowd on each side and they were taken care of by the Garber staff.

--When I arrived at 6:00 p.m., and hour before tip-off, the signs on the door read “sold out”, and from my understanding only tickets were sold at each High School.

--Special thanks to Jan Miller, Dave Schwartz and the Athletic Department for their assistance. For hosting a big game in a small gym they did a very good job with the crowd.