Lumberjacks Stumble At Duluth East

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Feb 4

Dwight Cadwell-NSO

The Cloquet Lumberjacks knew what they had to do in order to down the Duluth East Greyhounds in a boy’s basketball contest on Thursday. The first ten minutes of the game appeared to be all Cloquet, but the Greyhounds lit a fire and exploded to come away with the 79-45 win at home.

Cloquet did all the right things on Thursday in the first 8 minutes of the game. They slowed the ball down on offense and took high percentage shots, while also doing a good job on the boards without committing any turnovers. Cloquet held a 13-3, ten point lead with a little over ten minutes remaining. A bad pass by Cloquet lead to a thunderous slam dunk by Johnny Woodard, which seemed to ignite the crowd, and from there on it was all Duluth East.

The Greyhounds closed out the first half, outscoring Cloquet 32-7 in the last ten minutes of the half. At one point, East went on a seventeen point run over a stretch of four minutes, never looking back as they built a 35-20 halftime lead. One of the most amazing facts was Cloquet held Duluth East standout Dyami Starks scoreless in the first half. However, he responded well in the second half to finish with 17 points on the night.

The second half was the same with Duluth East dominating by using their speed and quickness to run away from Cloquet. The Lumberjacks failed to mount any comeback, only seeing the Greyhounds pulling further and further away. After the midway point of the first half, Cloquet continued to struggle in all facets of the game. Cloquet committed 25 turnovers and was out rebounded by Duluth East by a margin of 53 to 38. East also scored twenty points off of turnovers, compared to only seven for the Lumberjacks.

Johnny Woodard led all scorers for East with 25 points, several coming on crowd-exciting dunks. Starks finished with 17 points and Nick Toland scored 14 for Duluth East. Cloquet was led by Chad Calcaterra with 16 points, RaRa Jones added 13, Tim Defoe scored 7, Zach Zezulka finished with 4, Conner Stowell added 3 and Dane Kiehn ended with 2. Cloquet is back in action on Thursday at home when they host Duluth Denfeld. Duluth East plays at home against Superior Saturday afternoon.

Dwight Cadwell can be reached at dwight@northlandsportsonline.com