By Brayden Dirks
On December 3rd, the MMCRU Boys Basketball team had their first regular season game against Gehlen Catholic in Lemars. This was a tough contest for the Royals with Gehlen coming off of a two loss season. The Royals ended up falling to the Jays, losing 64-29.
Gehlen was coming off a tough game the day before, only beating Cherokee by one. Those tired legs contributed to a close first half, with the Jays leading 13-7 after one. In the second quarter, the MMCRU offense struggled with many turnovers and several missed shots. At halftime, the Jays led 34-11 and did not stop there. The Royals still struggled on offense in the second half and couldn’t find a way to stop Gehlen’s elite scorers. Carter Derocher led the way for Gehlen with 32 points and was hot from the three, going 6/8 from beyond the arc. Sophomore Mitchell Schnepf led the way for the Royals with 10 points and eight rebounds. Freshman Michael Peterson was the second biggest contributor, coming off the bench with seven points.
Coach Cam Kuchel gave his remarks regarding the game, “It’s always tough to open our year against a team that is as tough as Gehlen is. They are a top 10 team in the state in class 1A with a few games under their belt already. Our young squad had a tough time handling their pressure. There were some positives though in this game. We played pretty strong defense for game 1 and were great teammates throughout the game.”
The Royals bounced back strong last Monday against Harris-Lake Park. They won a close one, with the score being 55-49. MMCRU had a strong first quarter with the score being 17-11, and Royal sophomore Jonah Petersen started off well with 13 of those points in the first. At halftime, the Royals maintained their lead with it being 26-21. The third quarter was another close one with the Royals winning the quarter by only one, and the score being 41-35 at the end of it. In the fourth quarter, MMCRU solidified their victory by continually feeding Mitchell Schnepf down low. Along with that, the Royals shot very efficiently from the free throw line at the end of the game and only had a few turnovers in the fourth quarter. Sophomores Schnepf and Petersen had phenomenal nights, scoring 14 and 17 points respectively. Petersen shot 8 of 10 from the field and had one three pointer. Coach Kuchel was excited about the win but knows the team can improve, “Love to get win #1 under our belt early. We didn’t perform as well as I thought we should have against HLP but their full court pressure bothered us. It was great to see us handle ourselves with poise down the stretch and keep them out of arms length of crawling back into the game. We did a nice job of knocking down FT and taking care of the ball when the game was on the line.”
The Royals will travel to Hinton in December to play the Blackhawks, and will play Akron-Westfield on December 17th in Remsen. Please come and support the Royals!