Esko Boys Begin Playoffs With Huge Win

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Mar 7, 2012

Dwight Cadwell-NSO

The Esko Eskomos advanced to the quarterfinals of the Section 7AA boys playoffs Wednesday night with an 82-36 victory over the Pine City Dragons at Esko High School. It was the second meeting in less than a week for these two teams.

Esko and Pine City finished the regular season with 82-29 victory at Pine City High School last Friday night and the Eskomos matched the same offensive output as they did last Friday, except Wednesday, they connected on one more 3-pointer than they did last Friday.

Jackson Lindquist continued his long range assault, hitting three 3-pointers to spark the Eskomos ten 3-pointer barrage Wednesday night. Marc Peterson matched Lindquist with three from beyond the arch, Casey Staniger connected with two, and Garrett Iverson and Kory Deadrick also had one each.

The Eskomos continued with their season long pressure defense and outstanding rebounding as the Eskomos again forced Pine City into 25 turnovers on the night while the Eskomos also out rebounded the Dragons 38-28.

Esko jumped out fast as they cruised to a 46-24 lead at halftime and continued to roll in the second half again outscoring the Dragons by a 36-12 mark in the second half as they went on to the 46 point win.

The Eskomos were led by Lindquist, who finished with 17 points, Staniger and Deadrick each added 14 points on the night, Deadrick also led both teams with 13 rebounds. Jared Harms and Peterson both added 13 points, Ben Hansen finished with 6 and it was Iverson with 5 points.

The Dragons were led by Jordan Rarick who finished with 9, Brickre Fischer added 8, Tyler Johnson 7, Josh Adams 6, Gabe Goneya 4, and it was Nick Long with 2 at the Dragons season comes to an end with an overall record of 5-22.

Esko advances to the section quarterfinals at UMD and will face the Mora Mustangs at 2:45 pm on Saturday in the second of two afternoon quarterfinal games that day. With the opening round win over the Dragons the Eskomos improve to 23-4 on the season

Dwight Cadwell can be reached at dwight@northlandsportsonline.com