No easy dates on the schedule for Posen’s basketball team in conference

The schedule has been a grind for Posen (2-4 overall, 2-3 league) in the new year. They started off with a rough road loss at Fairview and followed that with a loss to North Star League front-runner, Hale last Thursday at home, 55-28. Up next is Hillman, who was tagged with their first conference setback Monday against Fairview.

There have been no cupcakes in 2009, or easy victories. Monday, in the Posen’s second win of the season at Atlanta, the boys took a 31-point lead into halftime, 37-6, but squandered it away in the second half. A big reason for that was 19 turnovers over the final two quarters.

Even with a 53-47 win, coach Steve Hentkowski was preaching the importance of playing 32-minutes of intense basketball.

The Vikes only had nine turnovers in the first half, while keeping Atlanta’s top sc

orer, Kevin Haren, to three points in the first half. He came back with 13 in the second half. Hentkowski was particularly pleased with the way the boys ran the offense in the first half.

“It was outstanding,” said Hentkowski. “We ran our sets and time-after-time, scored.” Last Thursday, in front of a decent Thursday night crowd, the boys showed they had kicked away the holiday cobwebs and played with a lot of intensity, but it wouldn’t be enough.

“They have a good ball club,” the coach said. Hale put away the game with a 1-2-2 trap in the second half.

“We still haven’t been able to put together four quarters Scott Couture finished with nine points, while Shane Hentkowski had seven points and seven rebounds. Aaron Romel contributed five boards. J.V. score was not available.