Devils get sick at wrong time

Talk about getting sick at precisely the wrong time, the under-the-weather Noxon Red Devil boys fell victim to the flu bug and to their opponents in the District 14C tournament in Ronan last week.

Without starter Aiden Galloway in their tournament opener against Two Eagle River Thursday, the Devils were upset by the hot-shooting Eagles 57-51. The Devils lost 66-53 to Hot Springs Saturday morning in loser-out action.

Already pretty thin on their bench, the Devils had to readjust their lineup to play the Eagles without point guard Galloway, moving versatile 6-5 center Rylan Weltz into more of a ball-handling role than he normally performs.

“It (Galloway’s absence) forced us to have Rylan handle the ball more, and also took Rylan out from underneath,” coach Ryan Weltz, Rylan’s father, said. “And Aiden wasn’t our only sick kid, it seemed like half of the team was battling the crud last week.”

Coach Weltz said Galloway was especially sick on game-day Thursday, being bed-ridden and running a high fever. Still, if the Eagles had not gotten so hot shooting the ball, the Devils may well have survived the encounter anyway.

“They hit 10 3-pointers, including seven in the first half with five of those in the second quarter,” Weltz said. “They were hot and everything was going in for them, several of their threes were even off the glass.”

The second quarter Weltz is referring to turned out to be fatal as the Eagles won it 22-11 to take a 37-28 lead into halftime and never relinquished it after that.

Rylan Weltz stepped up once more to score 18 points to lead Noxon in the game, Brody Hill added 13, Wyatt Lackner 10, Michael Antonich seven and Nate Cano two.

Michael Brown scored a game-high 22 points for Two Eagle, Anthony Charlo scored 13 and Sheadyn Croft 12.

Although Galloway was able to play Saturday morning, the depleted Devils still did not have enough fuel in their tank and lost a loser-out contest to Hot Springs 66-53.

Rylan Weltz wrapped up his outstanding hoop career by leading the Red Devils yet again with 22 points, Antonich scored 13, Cano seven, Galloway six and Lackner five. Please see other story for Hot Springs scoring.

Coach Weltz was reflective on looking back on what had just passed.

“The kids are disappointed, we thought we could have had a little better tournament with some different circumstances, but that’s basketball, this was a fun coaching year for me.

“We had some trouble with depth and experience and figuring out where everybody fit in,” he added, “but, by the end, we were a competitive team and it was still a good season. I am proud of these kids.”