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The Ely Timberwolves probably needed one of their best shooting performances of the season to have a chance at knocking off Mt. Iron-Buhl in the Section 7A high school boys basketball quarterfinals.
But instead the Wolves couldn’t get warmed up early on in Saturday’s clash, and the third-seeded Rangers pounced.
Mt. Iron-Buhl bult a double-digit lead quickly, limited from the Wolves to 18 first-half point and rolled to a 6737 win at Esko.
It was the Wolves’ third straight defeat to the Rangers, who moved on to Thursday’s semifinals and a clash with number-two Deer River.
Ely finished 17-11 and never got the chance to put a scare into MIB.
“We struggled from the start and never could get into a flow offensively with their physical defense,” said Ely Head Coach Tom McDonald.
Ely shot less than 25 percent (15for-62) and McDonald said “we missed some easier ones early on to keep us in the game.”
“I thought we actually did well enough on the defensive end but we had too many turnovers that led to run outs for them,” said McDonald.
MIB (24-4) led 36-18 at the half and the contest was all but over.
The Rangers combined their defense with size and balance to put the Wolves away, with Chris King scoring 21 points to pace four MIB players in double figures.
Micaden Clines scored 16 points for the Rangers and TJ Duchamp (13) and Isaiah Also (10) followed.
Senior Caid Chittum, Ely’s top scorer for the season, led the Wolves with 24 of their 37 points.
Leo McKrahl came off the bench to provide good defense for the Wolves and he snared 10 rebounds.
The loss ended an otherwise impressive year for the Wolves, who finished well under the .500 mark in 2023-24 and were knocked out in the first round of the 7A tournament.
“I thought we had a nice year and it was nice to turn our record around from last year and for the most part be competitive in every game,” said McDonald.
Chittum finished his career with 1,467 points and set a single-season school record this year with 713 points, topping the mark of 694 set by Eric McDonald in 2006.
Chittum also scored 50 points in a win over Bigfork, setting the school’s single-game scoring mark in the process.
Junior Jack Davies also averaged over 20 points per contest this winter and dished out 5.9 assists per game as well, while junior Drew Johnson almost averaged a double-double, finishing with an average of 12.9 points, 9.2 rebounds as well as 5.5 assists per night.
McDonald is looking ahead to 2025-26, when Davies and Johnson will head a solid returning nucleus.
“We do have a lot of experience coming back and a good offseason will allow us to be in the upper half of the section again next year,” said McDonald. “Many teams lose multiple starters from their teams including MIB, Littlefork, Deer River, North Woods and Chisholm. I thought our biggest downfall this season was our perimeter shooting and for us to be more successful next year we are going to have guys that spend a lot of time this summer just getting shots up. We are a team that shoots a lot of threes and my hope next year is that we make more of them.”
