Red Oak falls in season-opener, shows promising balance

While the season opener  for the Red Oak Boys basketball team ended with a loss, head coach Theo Fundermann was pleased with the response and attitude showed throughout the contest.

“We’re very capable of putting some points on the board,” Fundermann said. “Early on, we didn’t rebound and do the winning plays that we knew we had to do against a really good Lewis Central team.”

Fundermann’s squad fell Friday night 65-48 in the season and conference-opener to Lewis Central, but not before making the game tough for the visitors.

The Tigers went into the locker room at half down by 13, and the score got worse before it became better.

Trailing by as much as 16, Red Oak pieced together a run to cut the lead back to just three points in the third quarter.

“If we hit shots early, that run doesn’t look so big because that’s just kind of the norm of what we hope to do,” said Fundermann. “I thought our guys did a nice job of coming out in the third quarter and digging in and getting those 50/50 balls and clean the glass up a little bit. That lead to some points and some runouts that we know we have to do.”

As soon as the three-point margin started to enthuse the raucous home crowd, Lewis Central roared back to put the game away.

In the fourth quarter, the Tigers were shut down. Limited to just 10 points in the last stanza, Red Oak slowly watched as the slim margin was pushed to the final margin of 17 points.

“When you expend that much energy to get back into a game, that couple of shots here and there, it hurts,” Fundermann said. “We had some real serious foul trouble with Connor Jansky, which turned our lineup into some different looks that we weren’t necessarily ready for.”

Jansky was part of the tremendous third quarter for the Tigers, coming down and finishing with a team-high six rebounds and three steals before fouling out in the fourth.

In terms of scoring, Red Oak featured a balanced attack of three scorers: Ryan Lundgren (11); Jesse Taylor (10); and Weston Rolenc (10).

Taylor, who Fundermann mentioned in the preseason as picking up a small injury, finished with 10 points.

“I think the ball just didn’t drop for him tonight” said Fundermann. “We’ve got a lot of faith in Jesse and Weston and Ryan and Conner and every player on our roster for that matter. I think it was just a night where the shots didn’t drop, and that’s the way it goes sometimes in basketball.”

Taylor finished 3-15 shooting, 2-10 from beyond the three-point arc.

Just feet from Taylor knocking in his three-pointers was Fundermann, who was taking full advantage of a new rule implemented by the athletic governing bodies.

In the offseason, the Iowa High School Athletic Association and Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union approved a new coaching box, allowing the coaches to stand up and move around during games.

Fundermann, now in his third year with Red Oak, mentioned his previous experience at North Kansas City High School, and how he is happy Iowa got on board with the new rule.

“It allows you to stand up and talk with your players,” Fundermann said. “I really like being up and being able to communicate with my players better. It allows you to see the game from their perspective, see the offense, defense better; it’s a different vantage point. No criticism to the higher powers, but it’s a long-time coming.”