• 
• CLASS
• JOBS
• AUTO
• HOMES

Ziemer leads Verona past Craig

VERONA — In the midst of a horrid shooting night, instead of pouting about not hitting his shots or drawing more fouls, Verona forward Jason Ziemer simply went to work in the trenches.

Eventually, hard work paid off, and the shots started to fall at the perfect time to help the Wildcats pull away.

Ziemer shook off a tough shooting night to score 23, guard Sam Karls chipped in with 18 and host Verona knocked off Janesville Craig, 78-66 on Saturday night, in a Big Eight Conference boys basketball matchup.

The Wildcats’ 6-4 forward made just 11 of his 30 shots and continually missed two, three, even four shots in a sequence trying to put back his own misses. But it was that tenacity to keep getting the ball back that ultimately allowed Ziemer to score 23 for the seventh time in his past eight games.

“He did miss some shots that were a little bit uncharacteristic,” Verona coach Alan Buss said. “But the thing about him is even when he misses a shot, he’s aggressive enough to go after the offensive rebound. Tonight, he had a couple of offensive putbacks.”

Verona (7-3, 6-2 Big Eight) looked to Ziemer more and more down the stretch when things got a little tight. Even though the Wildcats struggled shooting outside when the Cougars did a nice job of collapsing on Ziemer, Karls nailed some outside shots for Verona to give his team that early cushion.

“(Ziemer) gets a lot of touches, our guys do a nice job of getting him the ball,” Buss said. “But Sam Karls really had a nice game … he sparked us, that takes a little pressure off of Jason.”

Craig (5-5, 4-4) missed its first seven shots of the third quarter and allowed Verona to open up a 47-35 lead, its largest of the night. But center JoJo Pregont scored six during an ensuing 12-4 run to bring the Cougars within four.

Cougars forward Kyle Goike hit five three-pointers and had 15 for the night. After a Verona run, Goike’s three brought the Cougars within 59-56 in the fourth quarter, but Verona put the game away with a 9-0 run on three Ziemer layups.

“They block out and rebound as well as any high school team that I’ve seen in a long time,” Craig coach Bob Suter said. “They’re pretty physical, they just killed us on the boards, especially in the first half.”

Forward A.J. Fredricks led the Cougars with 19 points.

Pregont was dominant on defense with three blocks in the first half, but picked up his fourth foul in the last minute of the third quarter and couldn’t help out on Ziemer in the final period.

“They play the game the way it was meant to be played,” Suter said. “Fundamentally, they’re very sound. They throw a lot of things at you, so it’s tough to handle. But I was proud of our kids, I thought we battled pretty hard.”

VERONA 78, CRAIG 66

Craig (66)—Cagney, 4-0-10; Kennedy, 1-0-2; Fredricks, 8-1-19; Goike, 5-0-15; J Pregont, 6-3-16; Lowe, 1-0-2; Clanfield, 1-0-2. Totals: 26-4-66.

Verona (78)—Platto, 0-0-0; Karls, 6-3-18; Schaaf, 1-5-8; Ziemer, 11-1-23; Wadzinski, 4-3-11; Ropel, 1-4-6; Nauman, 1-0-2; Peterson, 1-3-5; Riebau, 2-1-5. Totals: 27-20-78.

Craig 18 17 16 15—66

Verona 23 20 14 21—78

Three-point goals—Craig 10 (Cagney 2, Goike 5, Fredricks 2, Pregont), Verona 4 (Karls 3, Schaaf) Free throws missed—Craig 5, Verona 10. Total fouls—Craig 22, Verona 15. Fouled out—None.

Sophomores—Craig 61, Verona 60.