RSM fall to L-B 57-48

With just three minutes on the clock, Remsen St. Mary's was playing tough against the visiting Lawton-Bronson team. Coach Ken Hajek's team trailed 48-45 "were creeping in," according to Hajek.

Unfortunately, the Hawks couldn't overcome the barrier and were outscored 9-3 in the final minutes en route to a 57-48 loss.

"It wasn't really critical turnovers but we didn't run the offense well at the final minute mark," Hajek said. "We didn't have the offense running the way we wanted it to go and we lost control."

"But we were in there until just the end."

Despite the loss, Hajek noted some great improvements his team made against the Eagles.

"We played better," he said. "It was nice to just get a good game under our belt."

"One area that we were happy with was we did a nice job with assists."

With a team total 16 assists, Hajek said, "That's the most we've had in any game this season. We passed the ball around looking for people to make the shot."

Michael Wesselmann led the team with five assists while Tanner Kockler dished out four.

Another area of brightness for the Hawks was the turnover number. "Our turnovers were down for once," Hajek said. "We only had 13, which is our lowest ever for this year."

"Those are two positives from tonight. But we could still improve in some areas."

Hajek added that his team got some quality looks at the basket in the loss. "We took what were good game shots," he said. "A couple were still not the shots we wanted the kids to take, but hopefully through the learning process they will improve on that."

Leading the scoring for RSM were Skyler Higgins with 21 points and Kockler with 10.

Kockler also had four steals. Billy Steichen pulled down seven rebounds to lead the team.

RSM (2-4) hosts the first round of the CYO tournament on Saturday, Jan. 3, where Hajek's squad will face Spalding Catholic. The final round on Sunday will be played at Briar Cliff University in Sioux City.