Kevin Cederstrom
Eagles senior post player Ryan Peeters needs just nine points to reach an impressive scoring milestone. Peeters scored 29 points Friday against Underwood and when NY Mills takes on Ulen-Hitterdal in the first round of the sub-section playoffs Thursday at the Sports Center he is likely to score his 1000th career point.
Peeters leads the team in scoring with 410 points this season and averaged 18.5 per game in the regular season.
The Eagles (17-5) is the #3 seed in Sub-section 6A, behind #2 Park Christian and #1 Norman County East.
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NY Mills beat Underwood 77-54 on Friday and carry some momentum into the playoffs. Along with Peeters 29 points, Ted Rud and David Klinnert each scored 12 for the Eagles. Erik Peeters also scored in double-digits with 10.
Ryan Peeters has 64 blocks on the season to lead the Eagles.
Overall, we played a solid full game of basketball, head coach Bryan Dunrud said. We mixed things up on defense, which made it difficult for the Rockets to get into sync and our defense was disciplined, and we got the ball inside to take advantage of the mismatches throughout the game. This is a good game to build on going into the playoffs.
Rud is averaging 14.6 points a game and gives the Eagles a good 1-2 scoring punch. On the glass, Peeters is averaging 9.3 rebounds a game and Rud pulled down about 6 rebounds per game in the regular season. The next leading scorer is David Klinnert at 8.7 points a game. The Eagles averaged 70 points/game and gave up 51 points on average during the regular season.
Josh Hendrickx leads the team in 3-pointers with 27 and Chris Baune is the team leader in steals with 38.
Looking at Thursdays match-up, Dunrud said U-H likes to play a zone and applies a lot of ball pressure out of the zone. Offensively, they like to get the ball inside to 67 Jonathan Lunde or to shooting guard Justin Grafsgaard.
Overall, we just need to stick to the basics, Dunrud added. We need to play good position basketball whether we are in man or zone and minimize the amount of second shot attempts they get. Offensively, we need to take what the defense gives us and take care of the ball and not turn it over. If we stay within ourselves and do the little things well, we should be successful.
Game time for NY Mills and Ulen-Hitterdal is 7 p.m. at the Sports Center. The winner advances to play at 2 p.m. at Concordia in Moorhead against the winner of the Park Christian/Waubun game.
