West boys have won seven of eight

New Berlin - Shorewood junior forward Donovan Freeman could only pump his fist in frustration as his long 3-pointer rattled off the back of the iron Jan. 3 at the buzzer, allowing New Berlin West to take a deep breath as it pulled off a physical 58-55 Woodland Conference road decision.

"That's the way our season has been going," said Greyhounds coach Phil Jones. "Almost all of our losses have been like that - Greendale, South Milwaukee, Eisenhower and now this one; all four points or less."

Vikings coach Jeff Lewiston knows how lucky his team was. West led wire-to-wire but the Greyhounds hung around and there was no point in the second half when the Vikings felt comfortable.

"We were fortunate," Lewiston said. "They just kept coming and coming. We had to keep our foot on the accelerator because they just kept battling."

There were several roller-coaster-style surges and counter-surges in the second half. The Greyhounds scored the first six points of the third quarter to close to 30-29 with 6 minutes, 17 seconds left.

But then Shorewood stalled, missing several chances to take the lead, including four shots on one possession. Finally, West's Darrin Sowinski (17 points) and Dan Sidesky (14) got back-to-back buckets to give the Vikings some breathing room.

The baskets all came as part of a furious and physical flurry.

Shorewood got it back to one again at 36-35 on a Freeman (20 points) drive with 1:49 left in the third, but then West scored the last six points of the period to make it 42-35 going into the fourth.

The Greyhounds got it to within three early in the fourth, but then West went on a 9-2 run to expand the advantage out to 52-43 with 4:52 left. Austin Fritz's layup made the Vikings the most comfortable they would be in the period.

But West would then go quiet for more than three minutes as Shorewood, keyed by a three-pointer by Bobby Kohl (nine points), went on a 7-0 run to close the margin to 52-50 with 1:36 left.

A technical foul on the Shorewood bench resulted in two Sidesky free throws for the Vikings at the 1:29 mark and made it 54-50.

Things weren't done yet. Freeman got a layup with 39 seconds to go to cut the margin to 54-52. After West burned two timeouts trying to get something going, Sidesky hit two more free throws to make it 56-52 with 25 seconds left.

Shorewood missed a shot, but the Vikings couldn't clinch the game either, as a front end of the bonus would not go down.

Freeman tried to put the Greyhounds on his back one more time, as he scored seven of his points in the fourth. He made a tough drive to the basket, sank the layup, was fouled and completed the three-point play with just 10 seconds to go cutting the margin to 56-55.

But then Vikings point guard Dino Poulos sank two more charity tosses with seven seconds left to make it 58-55 before Freeman's 3-point attempt failed.

"He (Jones) does a very good job over there," said Lewiston. "He has them playing good ball over there. They just don't quit. … This was a nice road win for us. Our kids have been playing better of late and they don't quit either."

CUDAHY

The Vikings used a big third quarter (24-8) to overcome a 24-17 halftime deficit and beat the Packers, 50-43, on Friday at home.

Sowinski continued his scoring rampage of late by scoring 17 of his game-high 23 points in that third quarter. Jordan McKeon had 11 and Sidesky added eight. Teontae Morgan had 17 for the Packers.

The win was the Vikings seventh in eight games and four in a row as they improved to 7-3 (9-4) right with St. Thomas More (7-1, 10-3) and Brown Deer (7-2, 10-3). They played at St. Francis (0-9, 0-12) on Tuesday and now travel to Brown Deer on Friday. The also play a non-conference game against Slinger (8-4) on Tuesday at home.