Pirates win home tourney in electrifying fashion

Keeping a lid on a pressure-cooking opponent that wanted to play at Mach 5 and handling a more calculated, fundamentally sound one the next day led the Port Washington High School boys’ basketball team to a Holiday Hoops Shootout home tourney title last week.

In a 58-50 win in the championship game over Oostburg on Dec. 29, the Pirates got 17 points from junior Matt Esselmann, including two on an electrifying, crowd-igniting, one-handed slam dunk after he stole the ball and outraced everyone down court.

“I was thinking, ‘If I don’t make this, I’m going to get taken out,’” the 6-foot-1-inch guard said of his mindset while skying above the rim.

“The adrenaline kicked in. I was up there and I went for it.”

The slam extended the Pirates’ lead to 51-39 with 3 minutes, 20 seconds to play.

“Big momentum shifter. That was awesome,” Port senior forward Brayden Thompson said.

As the Flying Dutchmen frantically tried to come back, Thompson drained three of four free throws in the game’s final 45 seconds to help seal the victory.

“It’s just stepping up with confidence. You practice that all the time. Just get in a routine and knock them down,” he said of his thoughts with the ball 15 feet from the basket.

Thompson finished with 11 points, earning praise from coach Brian Hebein for his rebounds, clutch free throws and defensive play “that the average fan doesn’t see.”

Junior guard Kenyon Davis scored 15 points on 5-for-11 shooting, going 3-for-6 on three-pointers, with a big one with 2:06 left to extend the lead to 54-41. He also had four steals.

It was his second straight standout performance after scoring a career-high 25 points the day before.

Senior forward Brady Fleischmann grabbed eight rebounds and scored two points in a reserve role.

“He’s been a starter all year. He comes off the bench. He doesn’t sulk about it. He doesn’t care. ‘All right, where do you need me?’” Hebein said. “He goes out and plays a ton of minutes and does an awesome job. He rebounds like crazy.”

The Flying Dutchmen stymied Port’s offense a little bit in the first half with a mix of 1-3-1 and 2-3 zone defenses, but the Pirates held a 24-22 lead at the break.

Twenty-two of Port’s points came against man-to-man defense, Hebein said.

“You know they’re going to be fundamentally sound. They’re going to switch up defenses on you. Oostburg is obviously a very well-coached team.”

Hebein ran through the defenses with his team before the game.

“You can work on it all you want. Do you come out and execute? Our guys to their credit, executed,” he said.

In the second half, after ties at 29 and 32, Port took small leads and slowly began to pull away.

Fleishmann hit two free throws to give Port the lead for good, 34-32, with 11:46 left. Thompson followed with two more, and Davis had a steal and hoop to make it 38-32 with 9:19 left.

Aiden Van Ess hit a three-pointer to cut the lead, but Thompson answered with one of his own to push the lead back to 41-35 with 8:31 to play.

Oostburg never got closer than four the rest of the way. Esselmann drove the baseline and scored a bucket, Egan hit a jumper and Burmesch hit a free throw to extend the edge to 46-37 with 5:26 left.

Van Ess led Oostburg with 13 points. Preston Brill had 11. Ben Batzner had eight and Luke Van Ess had seven.

Neither team excelled at the free throw line. Port went 20-for-35 and Oostburg was 8-for-18.

Port won the title without starting senior guard Patrick Lippe, who is out with an ankle injury.
Port leaves foe without hope

A day before taking down Oostburg, Port faced a foe employing a polar opposite style of play.

HOPE Christian, which came into last week 9-0, plays a lightning-paced, running game with less structure.

Led by Davis, the Pirates were able to prevent the ticking time bomb from going off in a 61-54 victory.

“I told the guys leading up to this all week. ‘They’re going to try and speed you up, they’re going to try and make mistakes. They want you to play fast. They have no interest in playing half-court defense with you. They want to get deflections, steals and runouts,’” Hebein said.

Davis’ 25 points came in a rare starting role on 8-for-13 shooting, including 3-for-5 on three-pointers and going 6-for-8 on free throws. He added four rebounds and three steals.

“We did it all as a team. We really executed all of our plays what we were supposed to do. We went out there and showed them we can score and not to take us lightly,” Davis said.

Hebein confirmed Davis likely won’t be coming off the bench anymore.

“Probably not. I think he’s done what he has been asked to do so far. He has worked hard to work his way up. I’m happy for him to come out and play like that,” he said.

Egan had 10 points and five steals. Burmesch had seven points, 11 rebounds and four assists, and Esselmann had seven points, nine rebounds and four assists. Thompson had seven points.

The Hawks’ 54 points was a season low. They scored between 68 and 106 in nine victories before facing Port.

Egan said he and his teammates were able to control the pace of the game.

“They wanted to make us play fast and we slowed it down and played our game, played fundamental,” he said.

Port was down, 27-26, at halftime. They took the lead for good on a Burmesch bucket inside while getting fouled. He made the free throw to give Port a 47-44 lead with 7:13 to play.

The Hawks cut the lead to 56-54 with 1:07 left.

Thompson made one of two free throws with 23.8 seconds left, and Davis snagged the rebound on the miss. Port called a timeout and was fouled. This time, Thompson made both with 17.2 seconds to go, making it 59-54.

After the Hawks missed a three-pointer, Davis hustled for the rebound and was fouled. He made two free throws with five ticks left for the game’s final points.

After 13 first-half turnovers, Hebein said he wanted his team to take better care of the basketball in the second half.

“If you do that, they will foul us and we will get in the bonus,” he said.

Port reached the bonus with more than 10 minutes left and the double bonus with more than seven minutes to play. They went 13-for-19 on free throws for the game.

Davis credits his hard work for his improvement.

“All these shots we take in a game we practice them. Practice pays off,” he said.

“I really just got into the gym a lot more. Coach (Eric) Tetzlaff got me in the gym Sundays, going through the motions, drills.”

Kanari Parr led the Hawks with 16 points and six rebounds. Jaylen Woodland had 11 points, and Simon Dominic had seven points and 11 rebounds.

Port, 3-7 overall and 1-5 in the North Shore Conference, plays at Hartford (0-6 NSC) on Friday, hosts nonconference foe Kewaskum (5-6 overall) at 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Nicolet (5-1 NSC) at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 11.