Shenandoah Boys Basketball
Shenandoah junior Joey O'Rourke rises for a jump shot Friday, Jan. 2, during a Mustang win over Atlantic. O'Rourke put together a 15-point game in the win.
Shenandoah sophomore Carter Sells surveys the Atlantic defense Friday, Jan. 2, during a Mustang win. Sells' 19 points led the Mustangs.
Shenandoah senior Logan Twyman attacks the Atlantic defense in transition Friday, Jan. 3, during a Mustang home win over the Trojans.
Shenandoah sophomore Gabe Buttry looks for space to drive to the basket Friday, Jan. 2, during a Mustang win over the Trojans.
Shenandoah senior Brody Burdorf looks for a teammate while Atlantic's Gage Gross applies the defense Friday, Jan. 2, during a Mustang win over the Trojans.
SHENANDOAH – The Shenandoah boys basketball team is playing at a level that Mustang fans haven’t seen in several years.
The Mustangs beat Atlantic 69-60 Friday, Jan. 2, in a game played at Shenandoah High School. The win was the first for the Mustangs over the Trojans in the Bound era, spanning 17 games, and gave Shenandoah five wins, matching the program’s highest total in nine years.
“We stressed over Christmas Break that this was a big opportunity for us to start the second half off right and do something that hasn’t been done in a long time,” Shenandoah head coach Luke Buttry said. “That’s special, especially for the seniors that have put in a lot of work into the program over the years. It’s a great way to kick off the second half of the year.”
A big reason for the Mustangs’ success has been their play inside on both ends of the floor.
After finishing up the first half of the season with a 21-point night against St. Albert, sophomore Gabe Buttry scored 17 points Friday in the win over Atlantic, easily his two best offensive outputs of the season.
“When I get the ball, I just want to be physical,” Gabe Buttry said. “I like to post up and use my vertical to jump up and score.”
Buttry added eight rebounds.
Brody Burdorf, a senior who is listed at 6-foot-8, is the team’s top rebounder and shot blocker, and added nine points in Friday’s win.
“We know with a lot of teams we can match up pretty good size wise,” Burdorf said, “with me, Gabe and Cole (Graham) inside, and we get a lot of good looks. That’s what we preach all the time is getting good looks inside and then we can kick it out if they double down.”
Burdorf, who finished the night with nine points, nine rebounds and three assists, said clogging things up inside defensively was a big part of Friday’s win.
“Atlantic has a lot of good scorers and we knew coming in that they like to get downhill a lot,” Burdorf said. “We knew they play hard and they crash hard and we just had to match their physicality early, stop the dribble-drive and rebound.”
Coach Buttry, who is in his first year leading the Mustangs, said having that inside game is something they have been working on throughout the season to turn into a strength.
“We really stressed that over break and stressed it early in the year too,” Coach Buttry said. “We want to reestablish that and try to get some touches in the post off transition. I thought we did a really nice job of that in the first half. We didn’t execute that quite as well in the second half, but it was good enough to get the win.”
Friday’s win was a roller coaster type of game for the Mustangs. Atlantic hit three 3-pointers in the game’s first 3:03, including two from Grant Petty, and led 13-2.
Shenandoah battled back, though. Burdorf scored twice inside, and Carter Sells scored seven points as Shenandoah trimmed Atlantic’s lead to 18-15 by the end of the opening period.
A triple by Joey O’Rourke gave Shenandoah its first lead at 24-23 at the 4:06 mark of the second quarter and the Mustangs never trailed again, scoring 15 of the quarter’s final 19 points to lead 34-27 at the break.
O’Rourke and Sells hit from deep in the first 75 seconds of the second half to push the lead to 13. The Mustangs still led by 13 after a basket from Gabe Buttry at the 4:25 mark of the third quarter but Atlantic answered, doing much of their work at the free throw line, to cut the lead to 48-41 by the end of the third quarter.
Atlantic got as close as two, a couple different times in the fourth quarter. A Sells triple answered the first one at the 6:23 mark and then O’Rourke scored at the 5:05 mark, sparking an 11-0 run to put the game away.
“Every practice I stress toughness and scrappiness,” Coach Buttry said, “and I told them after the game that sometimes toughness is a physical thing and sometimes it’s a mental thing. We get down 13-2 but know we have plenty of time to scrape back into this game. Or, sometimes when a call doesn’t go your way and they make some free throws and cut into the lead, and being able to respond with a big shot or an extra pass or an offensive rebound to break their momentum. I thought the boys did a great job of that.”
Sells scored a game-high 19 points, one better than Atlantic’s Kale Jensen, while Gabe Buttry added 17 and O’Rourke 15 for the Mustangs, who improved to 5-3 on the season and 2-2 in the Hawkeye 10 Conference.
Sells added seven rebounds and five assists. O'Rourke put up a double-double with 13 rebounds, while also adding five assists.
Logan Twyman added four points, three assists and two rebounds, while Ryker Wolf had three points, three assists, three steals and three rebounds. Cole Graham contributed two points and two reobunds.
Coach Buttry said he likes where his team is right now but said there is still plenty to work on with plenty of tough games still left on the schedule.
“We want to keep stressing to push the ball in transition,” Coach Buttry said, “and have our guys post up big in there and get the catch. Then, we have guys who can knock it down from outside and those guys getting their feet set and being ready to shoot. That will help us continue to put points on the board. We have to clean some things up on defense. That wasn’t great at times. We were there (Friday) with an arm, but we need to be there with our feet and our hips and our body.”
Hudson McLaren added 11 points and Petty had 10 for the Trojans, who fell to 2-6 on the season and 1-4 in the Hawkeye 10 Conference.
