NEW GLARUS — Mineral Point, previously ranked seventh in the WisSports.net Coaches Poll, knocked off then-third-ranked New Glarus 72-57 Jan. 7 in front of a jam-packed crowd. The fans watched two of the state’s top teams in Division 4 battle it out in a nonconference game that could foreshadow a sectional playoff matchup.

“Before the game, coach said this would be a regional/sectional type game,” New Glarus senior forward Trevor Gassman said. “The good thing is that it’s not and hopefully we’ll get another crack at them later in the season.”

Mineral Point (7-3) features two guards with height as tall as any post player New Glarus can put on the floor. Junior Isaac Lindsay (a 6-4 recruit of eight D-1 colleges) scored 33 points, while Brayden Dailey (a 6-5 sophomore with interest from several schools, including Wisconsin) scored 24 — 20 of which came in the second half. Both players are averaging more than 20 points per game this season.

“We knew they have two terrific players with Dailey and Lindsey,” Knights coach Travis Sysko said. “Lindsey had a heck of a game. I thought we did a great job of containing Dailey in the first half, then obviously he went off on us in the second half. We didn’t have an answer for either one of them.”

New Glarus (9-2) jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead thanks to a 3-pointer from Zach Feller and a basket in the paint from Mason Martinson. The Pointers opened 0-for-4 from the field, but once the first shot fell it was hard to stop them. Mineral Point rattled off an 18-2 run that lasted just four minutes to take an 18-7 lead with 11:09 left in the first half. The deficit for the Knights peaked at 24-9 with 9:22 left, and New Glarus slowly began to work their way back into the game.

“(Coach said to) just keep playing steady. We weren’t going to earn it back in one or two possessions,” New Glarus senior guard Jaden Kreklow said.

The Knights rattled off a modest 21-11 run of their own to bring the score back to 35-30 at the break, thanks in part to a foul on a half-court heave by Kreklow at the buzzer. Kreklow hit all-three free throws.

New Glarus looked like a team on a mission coming out of the locker room. The Knights finished erasing the 15-point deficit when Martinson scored in the post off of a beautiful dish by Gassman that made it 36-35 New Glarus.

West Berget gave Mineral Point the lead again with an immediate bucket in the block, but the Knights answered when Martinson fed Connor Siegenthaler in the left corner for a 3. The two teams sparred over the next two minutes with New Glarus seeing it’s final lead vanish on a step-back 3 at the top of the key by Dailey with 13:21 to play.

“At half I thought we were lucky to be down only five — I didn’t think we played very well. I liked the way we came out and started the second half — we got some steals, we got some buckets and took the lead. Unfortunately, we kind of lost our way and let Mineral Point get on a roll,” Sysko said.

The shot was just the start by Dailey, who added a breakaway slam and a thunderous two-handed alley-oop dunk off a pass from Berget during a 16-0 Pointers run.

“They’re good players — long and lengthy and hard to guard. Once they came back with the left hook everyone started getting scared and timid and it snowballed,” Kreklow said.

Dailey hit four 3s in the half, each from another step closer to half-court than the previous shot. Try as they might, the Knights could not keep a shot-for-shot pace from the outside. New Glarus, known for having a handful of players with the ability to hit shots from anywhere on the floor, hit just two 3s in the game.

“We didn’t get a whole lot of great looks. We’ve got to move the ball a lot more until we get better looks, and that’s a big part of (the problem),” Kreklow said.

New Glarus has lost just three times in the last two seasons — but twice in its past four games. Unbeaten and second-ranked Darlington, which also defeated Mineral Point, tipped the Knights Dec. 20.

“We’ve seen them all summer — we’ve beat them, they’ve beat us. It goes back and forth between all three of us teams — Darlington, Mineral Point and us. We know what we can do, we just have to execute better next time,” Gassman said. In the latest coaches rankings, Darlington remains second behind Roncalli, while Mineral Point moved up to sixth and New Glarus dropped to seventh.

Kreklow led New Glarus with 21 points, while Gassman had 11 and Martinson added 10. 

Gassman had his moments throughout the game in which his hustle led to points, change of possession or simply wooed the crowd with inspiring play.

“Trevor is a sparkplug for us. He does a lot of things that don’t show up in the scoring column like rebounds and defense. He’s a guy that we need to have out there. When he’s playing well that obviously helps us,” Sysko said.

Martinson battled hard in the post and scored eight of his points in the second half.

“Sometimes it’s easy to forget he’s only a sophomore. Obviously, he played up for us last year, but this year he has a much bigger roll. Like any sophomore that’s a first-time starter, there’s going to be some bumps along the way. But he’s got a great attitude, he’s working hard and he’s going to be just fine for us,” Sysko said.

Moving forward, the Knights play nine of their next 10 games in conference with only a nonconference road game Jan. 21 at Cuba City to break up the action.

“We’re moving into conference now, so we have to take care of business there. Everything will work out in the end once playoff season comes,” Kreklow said. “It’s always good to play good teams. It’s not making everyone better when we are coming out and blowing out teams. It’s good to get shocked every once in a while, and reminds us that we’re not invincible.”