MINERAL POINT — In a clash between two top-5 Division 4 powerhouses, the No. 1 Darlington Redbirds (5-1, 2-1 SWAL) fell on the road to the No. 3 Mineral Point (7-0, 3-0), 75-58.
“The biggest thing is we just didn’t come ready to play,” Darlington head coach Tom Uppena said. “Mineral Point played harder than we did, executed its game plan better, and just wanted to win the game more than we did. That’s as simple as I can put it.”
The Redbirds and Pointers traded shots over the opening minutes.
Broker Buschor (13 pts, 9 rebounds) tallied the game’s opening score, sprinting in to grab the rebound off a missed Reagan Jackson (9 pts, 5 rebounds) fade at the elbow.
Darlington got an answer to a Landon Thousand (25 pts) open 3-point shot from Brady Long (16 pts), who sank a second-chance jumper over Bryce Vamstaad.
Thousand sank a basket along the baseline to pull the advantage in Mineral Point’s favor, and Vamstaad extended the lead with a 3-pointer at 14:17.
Jackson contoured around Alex Ross 20 seconds later to drop a two along the elbow.
The Redbirds’ next score gave them the lead. It came at 12:56 by way of Jackson, who tied the game with a heavily contested layup, resulting in an and-one trip to the line that he sank.
The Pointers claimed the lead with a jumper by Jaxson Wendhausen (10 pts) with Taggart Gille in his face.
Jackson got involved on a lead changing score at 9:11. As he drove to the hoop, Jackson misdirected his shot as a pass to Dante Glendenning, who tossed up a hook that fell through the hoop.
Mineral Point scored eight unanswered points over the next 1:30 to flip the lead for the final time in the contest.
The remaining 7:40 of the half saw just eight points from Darlington — a pair of free throws and a jumper from an offensive rebound by Will Murray (12 pts), two free throws by Long, and a Buschor basket under the hoop assisted by Will Murray.
The only problem, then, was that the Pointers scored 17 points over the same stretch to claim a 35-19 lead at the break.
Gille nearly made it three points closer, tossing the ball like a football across the length of the court as time expired, only to have it bounce off the backboard.
Mineral Point came into the second half narrowly outscoring the Redbirds, 16-12 over the first nine minutes.
Darlington employed a full-court press after a timeout at 9:17, and the Redbirds clawed their way back into the game over the next six minutes, outscoring the Pointers 20-12.
Buschor led the pack with nine points over the stretch, while Will Murray, Jackson, and Long were involved in the run.
Buschor also capped the run with a pair of free throws ahead of a Darlington timeout at 3:41 as Mineral Point held a 63-50 lead.
Zeke Zuberbuhler matched a 2-point shot, hauling in the rebound from a Buschor miss under the hoop and exploding back up for the basket.
Over the final 3:08, the Pointers’ points came exclusively from the free throw line, and they went 10-for-14 to close the game.
Buschor, Jackson, and Will Murray all tallied a 2-point basket to close out the game.
“We maybe didn’t get some calls, maybe we didn’t shoot well, and maybe it just wasn’t our night,” Uppena said. “We can use a number of excuses to explain why we lost, but at the end of the day they are still excuses. We need to be better than we were tonight, and that’s on us as coaches and players and nobody else.”
Uppena was also eager to learn from the loss and move forward as Darlington returns home for a pre-Christmas showdown with Iowa-Grant (1-5, 0-2) on Thursday.
“Moving forward, our only option is to use this to motivate ourselves and fix our mistakes,” he said. “There is a lot of season left and we haven’t begun to hit our peak. I know this team will be ready for Iowa-Grant.”
