December 30 vs. Renville County West Jaguars The MCC Rebels boys basketball team has had an interesting season to this point. The Rebels opened their season on December 2nd and 3rd in Sleepy Eye. The Rebels then didn’t play another game until the 20th in Ellsworth. The Rebels would double their game total by playing 3 games in four days this past Friday, Saturday, and Monday. The Rebels would open their three-game schedule on Friday afternoon (December 30) in Marshall at the RA Facility on the campus of Southwest Minnesota State University against the winless Renville County West Jaguars.
The Rebels, like all teams in the area, have struggled to maintain a normal type of season with the number of canceled practices and postponed games plus the Christmas Holiday. Holiday basketball can always be difficult but it is even more so when you haven’t had a regular schedule going into it. The good news is, most teams are in the same boat so it’s all about how you perform. Friday the Rebels took on the Jaguars who started the season with just one returning starter to a team that lost their height and strength from a year ago and is replacing it with youth and inexperience. The Rebels and the Jaguars played one of the uglier halves of basketball to open the game. Both teams struggled to shoot inside or out but the Jaguars ended the first half with three three-point shots. The Rebel’s on the other hand only made one. Bryce Hoekman led the Rebels with 7 firsthalf points while Ryan Schrupp scored 7 for RCW. The score at the half was 20 to 18 Jaguars.
The Rebel’s offense picked up in the second half led by their size, Christian Tentinger and Bryce Hoekman. RCW didn’t have a player over 6’1” in the lineup and though the Rebels were not shooting well from the outside, they couldn’t be slowed down in the paint. Tentinger would score 12 second-half points while Hoekman would score 9. The Rebel duo matched the offensive output of RCW by themselves. The rest of the Rebels would score 16 points to put the Rebels over the top. MCC would get the win 55 to 41 for their third straight win.
Bryce Hoekman led the Rebels with 16 points, while Christian Tentinger would score 14. The Rebels inside duo outscored the Jaguars’ starting frontcourt by 24 points. The Rebel guards had a tougher time of it but Aiden Dierks scored 8 points in his return to the floor. Just how badly did the teams struggle from the outside? RCW made 20% of their three-point shots while MCC made 15% on the same number of shots. If you remove Aiden Dierks’s two made three-point shots the Rebels made just 1. The win moved the Rebel’s record to 3-1 on the season.
December 31 vs. Minneota Vikings The Rebels would play their second game in 24 hours in Marshall on Saturday morning (December 31.) The Rebels took on the Minneota Vikings in a Red Rock vs Camden Conference matchup. The Vikings, like the Rebels, hadn’t played many games this season and both teams were coming off day-one wins. The difference was Minneota put up 76 points in their win over the HBC Patriots on Friday while the Rebels were able to grind out a win over the RCW Jaguars. This game would resemble the MCC vs RCW game far more than the Minneota vs HBC matchup.
With two teams coming in off completely different kinds of performances, one had to wonder what we would see when they played against one another. It didn’t take long to see that these two teams were not going to light the scoreboard on fire. They might have caused both head coaches to lose a little more hair, though for Coach Johnston that would be difficult because he doesn’t have any. For the second straight game, the Rebels would fail to score 20 points in the first half. MCC made one shot outside of the paint when Aiden Dierks made the team’s only three-point shot of the game. The Vikings were even worse as they made just one three-point shot but only made 3 baskets from the field. The Rebels’ size inside again paid big dividends as the Rebels duo of Tentinger and Hoekman would combine for 14 points. MCC would lead at the half 17 to 11.
The second half was similar to Friday’s game for the Rebels as they would nearly double their scoring output from the first half to the second. Christian Tentinger would take advantage of some Minneota foul trouble and would score 11 second-half points and Bryce Hoekman would score 6. Tentinger actually scored as many points in the second half as the entire Minneota team did. Peyton Sheik would score 5 points in the second half to lead the Vikings and Max Rost would add four points but the rest of the team scored 2. MCC would continue their streak with 4 straight wins 48 to 22.
The Rebels were led by a pair of double-doubles. Christian Tentinger scored 18 points and grabbed 14 rebounds for the Rebels. Bryce Hoekman scored 13 points while grabbing 10 rebounds. He also led the Rebel defense with 8 blocked shots. No one else on the Rebels scored more than 5 points and MCC didn’t have a starting guard score until the final ten minutes of the game. Minneota didn’t have a player score more than 8 points in the game. The Rebels’ win puts them at 4-1 on the season.
