The Little Falls Flyers executed their game plan to bog down play in the first half, but CJ Manning and Christian Hedstrom sparked the Lakers down the stretch in a 52-35 Section 8-3A victory Friday night at Ralph Anderson Gymnasium. “Hedstrom came out ready to play like he does every night,” Manning said. “I thought to look for him because once he gets going, he’s hard to stop and he did it again tonight.” Hedstrom scored a game-high 25 points, 19 in the second half and most of his work came at the free throw line where he made 11 of 15 attempts. The Flyers dictated play in a low scoring first half as the lead changed hands four times to a 15-14 Little Falls lead with 1:20 until the break. “They wanted to slow it down and we were too impatient offensively,” Laker head coach Robb Flint said. “Because they were slowing it down we started getting excited. We’d take three passes and take a jump shot. Once we figured out we can get to the rim and get fouled and some easy buckets, that gets your confidence going and you can shoot the ball better from the perimeter.” Shooting was not a strong suit for either team in the opening half, but the Flyers stayed in the game by clamping down on DL’s transition game and matching bench for bench with substitutions. Little Falls elected to stall on offense upon seeing an early Laker defensive zone sitting with the ball near half court and allowing time to tick away. Hedstrom found some wide open space in the lane in the waning seconds to give the Lakers a 17-15 lead at halftime by way of two free throws with 7.8 seconds to go. Little Falls failed to get a shot off before the buzzer. “When you’re not making shots you have to be smart enough to know you have to get to the free throw line or some layups,” said Flint. “Once you start doing that it’s demoralizing on the defense. That’s the way we’ve got to try to play. Teams are going to slow it down. They don’t want us going up and down the floor, so we’ve got to make sure we take quality shots.” Ryan Cihak made a tremendous play early in the second half with a steal and a save of the ball near the offensive corner of the floor flipping the ball blind behind his back to a streaking Ben Hokanson for an easy deuce. Kyle Kabanuk answered quickly plus a foul shot to put the Flyers up 23-19. Manning stepped up and made consecutive drives to the hoop getting fouled and making all four free throws to sandwich a three-pointer by Hedstrom to give DL the lead for good at 12:50 up 24-23. “CJ was kind of the X factor tonight,” Flint said. “Christian had the most points and did a great job getting fouled and getting us rolling, but CJ came off the bench. We had to go small. We had a hard time guarding them and a hard time scoring and CJ went to the rim in transition and got fouled. He did a great job on the boards for how small he is. His ball pressure was tremendous and that really bothered them.” “I saw Hedstrom going hard to the lane so I thought I might as well go out and do the same and get to the line,” said Manning. The Lakers took over from there and held Little Falls scoreless for seven minutes to lead 40-28 with four minutes to play.
Forced to foul the Lakers, the game slipped away from Little Falls at the line. DL outscored the Flyers 35-20 in the second half playing the Laker style of basketball to improve to 14-2 overall and 5-0 in section play. Manning scored five points all at the line. Corbin Duncan and Ryan Cihak added nine points each. John Lukasavitz led the Flyers with 10 points. The junior varsity team won in a blowout and Van Gallatin scored on a put-back at the buzzer to give the freshman team a one-point victory and a sweep of the Flyers. The Lakers face another 8-3A opponent, Sartell St. Stephen, (8-9, 4-3) Saturday at home at 2:30 p.m. Laker results Little Falls at Detroit Lakes, Friday, Jan. 23 LF 15 20 - 35 DL 17 35 - 52 Scoring: LF- Lukasavitz 10, Kabanuk 7, Bell 5, Kornbaum 4, Zawatzke 3, Erdman 3, Loukinen 3. DL- Hedstrom 25, Duncan 9, Cihak 9, Manning 5, Hokanson 2, Johnson 2.The Little Falls Flyers executed their game plan to bog down play in the first half, but CJ Manning and Christian Hedstrom sparked the Lakers down the stretch in a 52-35 Section 8-3A victory Friday night at Ralph Anderson Gymnasium.“Hedstrom came out ready to play like he does every night,” Manning said. “I thought to look for him because once he gets going, he’s hard to stop and he did it again tonight.”Hedstrom scored a game-high 25 points, 19 in the second half and most of his work came at the free throw line where he made 11 of 15 attempts.The Flyers dictated play in a low scoring first half as the lead changed hands four times to a 15-14 Little Falls lead with 1:20 until the break.“They wanted to slow it down and we were too impatient offensively,” Laker head coach Robb Flint said. “Because they were slowing it down we started getting excited. We’d take three passes and take a jump shot. Once we figured out we can get to the rim and get fouled and some easy buckets, that gets your confidence going and you can shoot the ball better from the perimeter.”Shooting was not a strong suit for either team in the opening half, but the Flyers stayed in the game by clamping down on DL’s transition game and matching bench for bench with substitutions.Little Falls elected to stall on offense upon seeing an early Laker defensive zone sitting with the ball near half court and allowing time to tick away.Hedstrom found some wide open space in the lane in the waning seconds to give the Lakers a 17-15 lead at halftime by way of two free throws with 7.8 seconds to go. Little Falls failed to get a shot off before the buzzer.“When you’re not making shots you have to be smart enough to know you have to get to the free throw line or some layups,” said Flint. “Once you start doing that it’s demoralizing on the defense. That’s the way we’ve got to try to play. Teams are going to slow it down. They don’t want us going up and down the floor, so we’ve got to make sure we take quality shots.”Ryan Cihak made a tremendous play early in the second half with a steal and a save of the ball near the offensive corner of the floor flipping the ball blind behind his back to a streaking Ben Hokanson for an easy deuce.Kyle Kabanuk answered quickly plus a foul shot to put the Flyers up 23-19.Manning stepped up and made consecutive drives to the hoop getting fouled and making all four free throws to sandwich a three-pointer by Hedstrom to give DL the lead for good at 12:50 up 24-23.“CJ was kind of the X factor tonight,” Flint said. “Christian had the most points and did a great job getting fouled and getting us rolling, but CJ came off the bench. We had to go small. We had a hard time guarding them and a hard time scoring and CJ went to the rim in transition and got fouled. He did a great job on the boards for how small he is. His ball pressure was tremendous and that really bothered them.”“I saw Hedstrom going hard to the lane so I thought I might as well go out and do the same and get to the line,” said Manning.The Lakers took over from there and held Little Falls scoreless for seven minutes to lead 40-28 with four minutes to play.
Forced to foul the Lakers, the game slipped away from Little Falls at the line. DL outscored the Flyers 35-20 in the second half playing the Laker style of basketball to improve to 14-2 overall and 5-0 in section play.Manning scored five points all at the line. Corbin Duncan and Ryan Cihak added nine points each.John Lukasavitz led the Flyers with 10 points.The junior varsity team won in a blowout and Van Gallatin scored on a put-back at the buzzer to give the freshman team a one-point victory and a sweep of the Flyers.The Lakers face another 8-3A opponent, Sartell St. Stephen, (8-9, 4-3) Saturday at home at 2:30 p.m. Laker resultsLittle Falls at Detroit Lakes, Friday, Jan. 23LF 15 20 - 35DL 17 35 - 52Scoring: LF- Lukasavitz 10, Kabanuk 7, Bell 5, Kornbaum 4, Zawatzke 3, Erdman 3, Loukinen 3.DL- Hedstrom 25, Duncan 9, Cihak 9, Manning 5, Hokanson 2, Johnson 2.
