Tonight the Lake Mills Bulldogs will play for a birth in the Class 1A state championship game when they take on 1-seed Grand View Christian. The Thunder just barely squeaked by 8-seeded Bellevue on Monday. Though coach Dave Stubbs says, his team won’t be worried about Monday’s performance when they take the court against Lake Mills tonight.
Stubbs said his team didn’t play like a 1-seed, and Bellevue didn’t play like an 8-seed. They had a double-digital lead in the first half that was blown. An offense that averages almost 85 points per game was held to just 64 even after playing an additional 5 minutes in overtime.
Why does Stubbs think his team has been so good this year?
The Thunder are currently 25-0 and are led by Manny Hammonds, who averages 23.9 points per game, while Josh Baucum averages 19. They give up just 45.6 points per game. Daniel Tobiloba towers over the court at 6-11 and averages 14.5 rebounds per game, where most of his points come from. Grand View Christian and Lake Mills play a similar style of basketball, which could result in a high-scoring shoot-out, though – at times – both of their high-caliber offenses struggled in the quarterfinals. To put GVC play style into perspective, the Thunder treat it like a soccer game and would like to keep running up and down the court.
Lake Mills coach Kyle Menke says it may be easy to think about making it to and playing for a state title after reaching the semifinals, but doesn’t think it’s a good idea to think about anything but tonight’s game.
Tip-off for tonight’s game will be at 5:30, with the pregame show at 5:15 pm on KIOW. Full postgame coverage can be found online at KIOW.com following the game.
