Wolves Boys Basketball season ends at Regionals
Titus Stenberg
Farmer Sports Writer
Watford City got the opportunity to host the Division A Region 4 Boys Basketball Tournament this year. The No. 7 Wolves, lost 56-39 to No. 2 Dickinson Trinity, in the second quarterfinal last Monday. The Titans are the most familiar opponent for Watford City recently, with this game being their fifth matchup in the last two years. The Wolves played better than their previous meeting with the Titans, but Dickinson Trinity got the win, undoubtedly motivated to not be upset in the Quarterfinals of the Region 4 Tournament like they were last year.
“We played hard and much smarter in this game,” said Watford City head coach, David Gumke. “The last game with them, we did not play hard and just went through the motions. Effort makes a huge difference in how the game goes. Dickinson Trinity shot the ball well from the 3-point line and were balanced with their inside and outside play. They assisted and scored on most of their shots.”
The Titans finished with 18 assists on their 24 made field goal attempts. The sophomore duo of Landon Knote (18 points) and Emerson Simnioniw (15 points) led them in scoring.
“We shot a good percentage on 2-point field goals,” continued Coach Gumke. “But not so good from the 3-point line. Our 24 turnovers were difficult to overcome. Trinity is very good defensively and made it difficult to run our offense efficiently. We did not have very many assists, which tells you that we ended up taking shots off of individually creating, rather than moving and passing the ball. We had trouble in the second quarter, only scoring four points.”
Dominic Latray grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds, while Trysten DeVries blocked two shots. The loss ended the season for Watford City with a record of 3-19. “It was a season for growing as a team and coming together,” said Coach Gumke. “We are a very young team, and needed this season to work some things out. We were able to manage a lot of adversity, which is bound to happen and is needed to get a team to where they need to be. I felt that towards the end of the regular season, we began to play as a team and were not trying to be a bunch of individuals. Attitudes and effort were very good. Last summer, I was worried about our defense, but we came along way and are on our way to becoming a good defensive team.”
The win for Dickinson Trinity was the 600th career coaching win for their head coach, Gregg Grinsteinner.
With Watford City hosting the Region 4 Tournament, Coach Gumke offered his impressions of the tournament: “To me, Region 4 is the toughest region and I feel that 3 teams from this region will get to the state tournament with only the region 3 champion making it out of that region. It was very fun to have the region tournament in our facility. I thought that the tournament was run very well by Mr. Foss and his crew.”
Coach Gumke’s prediction was correct as you can see in our Tournament and State Qualifying recaps.
“I was very happy to see our guys attend all of the region games,” continued Coach Gumke. “It was good to see them taking in that tournament atmosphere and watching some very good basketball. They sat together for most of the games, and talked basketball as they watched.”
1 2 3 4 Final
Dickinson Trinity 14 14 13 11 56
Watford City 11 7 13 9 37
Watford City scoring: Trysten DeVries, 10; Xavier McGorman, 9; Thaydan Arnold, 8; Carter Breitbach, 5; Harper Moberg, 5; Dominic Latray, 2
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