MADISON — The Seymour Thunder claimed the WIAA D3 boys basketball runner-up title after seeing a 61-41 loss to the Racine St. Catherine Angels at the State Tournament on Saturday.
After a dominant season in the Bay Conference (16-0 conf., 27-1 overall), the Thunder earned their bid to the State Final game with a 67-49 win over St. Croix Central in the State Semifinals.
“We played one of our worst performances of the season against a really good team,” said Seymour Thunder Head Coach Bobby Kuchta. “They were really physical and we had a tough time responding to that physical play, so we had 17 turnovers. And we can shoot it, but we couldn’t shoot it well today, unfortunately.”
The Thunder kept the game close as play opened up at the Kohl Center but seemed to lose momentum when a series of steals by the Angels allowed them to pull ahead, leaving the Thunder down by a 22-15 deficit going into the half.
The Angels earned 12 turnovers and 9 fast breaks alone in the first half forcing the Thunder on their heels, something they have not encountered often this season.
In addition, the Thunder also struggled on the offensive going 11.1% on three-point attempts and 27.8% from the floor in the first half.
Despite the 7-point deficit going into the second half, the Thunder continued to attempt to comeback until the final buzzer.
“This group of guys — they are amazing kids,” Kuchta began before trailing off. “Sorry I just got a little emotional and I didn’t get to finish,” he continued. “These guys are a great group of kids and they bought into every single game that we had this year. Guys like Kyler (Marks) have been the face of the team here for the past three years. He hasn’t missed anything — open gyms, workouts, summer league. That’s part of the reason we got to where we did, because of guys like Kyler.”
Marks led the Thunder with 13 points on the night going 3-11 on field goal attempts and 2-4 on three-point attempts with 11 total rebounds.
As the second half progressed, the Thunder continued to struggle to compete with the Angels physicality and accuracy from the perimeter as they pulled ahead to a final score of 61-41.
The Thunder ended the night with a final FG percentage of 28.9% to the Angels 52.9% and shot at just 20% from the 3-point line.
“They were just in your face and all over the place and you don’t really see that much, especially at this level. It’s tough to prepare for that in practice. Our guys are tough and they fought through it as much as they could. Unfortunately, they just got their hands on a lot of balls and we had too many turnovers to beat a team like that,” said Kuchta.
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