COTTONWOOD – It was a night full of offensive energy for the Lakeview boys basketball team during their game against the Tracy-Milroy-Balaton Panthers Friday night. The Lakers took an early lead and never looked back, cruising to a 75-45 victory over the Panthers.

Coming off the win Lakeview’s coach Jared Keaveny saw more success in the second half from the Lakers and noticed more of a team effort as the night went on and was impressed with the rebounds that the team came out with.

“The second half I thought we did a better job attacking on offense, in the first half we passed the ball well but we didn’t look to score that much,” said Keaveny. “We set our team up more in the second half and ended up with some easier buckets. When you have a tall team like ours, we can rebound the ball very well. With many of our guys battling it down at the board. It really sparks the guys confidence.”

The Lakers got the night started with an early 6-0 lead over the Panthers and never looked back. TMB put up every shot opportunity that was given to them but couldn’t find the connection until it found a little spark on offense, closing the gap to make the score 14-9.

Despite making more aggressive moves on offense, TMB found itself making a few mistakes on defense. Lakeview used the Panthers’ mistakes to its advantage, and grew its lead even more to 28-18. With the Lakers holding a the lead for the entirety of the half, TMB started to pick up the pace on offense moving the ball faster in search of some scoring to come its way. Lakeview, though, continued to keep the Panthers at bay, and the strengths that the Lakers showed on offense gave them a steady lead at 35-27 over TMB at the half.

TMB junior Fritz Landherr saw a lot of positive things as far as defense goes and knows that going forward the team will need to work to improve everyday.

“We played them defensively really well, especially in the first half,” said Landherr. “We were rebounding and boxing out really well and that helped our confidence going into the second half.”

Both teams came into the second half with the mindset that it was anybody’s game. Lakeview showed a lot of aggression on its offense, forcing the Panthers defense to be on their toes at all times and not letting anything get by them. Similar to its success in the first half, Lakeview’s shots continued to fall, which helped them extend their lead to 54-33. On the other side of the court, TMB faced a lot of turnovers, giving Lakeview even more opportunities to drive the ball downcourt and create scoring opportunities.

TMB continued to fight on defense, and put some pressure on the Lakers with a little under five minutes left to play in the second half. Unfortunately for the Panthers, they tried to get a little too creative with their defensive strategy, and ended up causing multiple unnecessary fouls. The Lakers continued to push the pace on offense and used their strengths to their advantage to bring them to the 30-point win.

Jarod Goepferich led the Lakers in points with a total of 21 while teammate Tate Varpness added 20. Goepferich also contributed 19 rebounds and six blocks. The Panthers were led by Landherr with 18 points followed by teammate Matt Timmerman with 12.

TMB coach Rick Haberman despite some of the mistakes that were made both on offense and defense saw a lot of positive things from the Panthers during the game.

“We had a lot of positives, going into this game we wanted to control what we could control, like effort, attitude and how we play as a team,” said Haberman. “We wanted to be good in all three of those and I think that we did an excellent job with that. I thought we gave an outstanding effort and played hard.”

The Lakers will be back in action on Monday in Minneota at 7:30 p.m. and the Panthers will face RTR on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

Going forward in the season Keaveny looks forward to improving, but wants the team to keep working hard and playing smart.

“We have to play hard and smart the whole time, I think in the first half we played hard but we weren’t mentally into it and we kind of let them hang around,” said Keaveny. “In the second half we were sharp mentally and we got a bigger lead and finished the game off.”

TMB 27 18 — 45

Lakeview 35 40 — 75

TRACY-MILROY-BALATON: Munson 0-2 1-3 1, Holland 1-2 1-2 4, Landherr 5-10 7-7 18, Timmerman 6-14 0-0 12, Davis 3-8 4-4 10. TOTALS: 15-46 13-16 45.

LAKEVIEW: Goepferich 9-17 3-7 21, Varpness 6-17 8-16 20, Imes 4-7 0-0 11, Loe 4-9 1-2 10, Dopp 2-3 0-0 6, French 1-2 1-3 3, Vrbicky 1-1 0-0 2, Wyffels 1-6 0-0 2. TOTALS: 28-70 13-28 75.

3-POINTERS: TMB 2-11 (Landherr 1-1, Holland 1-2); Lakeview 6-23 (Imes 3-5, Dopp 2-3, Loe 1-4). REBOUNDS: TMB 32 (Nordsiden 10, Davis 9); Lakeview 46 (Goepferich 19). ASSISTS: TMB (); Lakeview 10 (Varpness Varpness 3). STEALS: TMB 0; Lakeview 14 (Goepferich 3, Varpness 3). BLOCKS: TMB 1 (Davis 1); Lakeview 6 (Goepferich 6). FOULS: TMB 22 (None); Lakeview 17 (None). TURNOVERS: TMB 24; Lakeview 10.