HESPERIA — North Muskegon hasn't lost a West Michigan Conference Rivers game in nearly three years, and Hesperia became the Norsemen's latest victim Thursday night, taking a 74-28 defeat.
The visitors were much quicker and more decisive than Hesperia, and it showed especially on the defensive end, as they threw the Panthers on their heels, forced turnovers and turned those turnovers into easy layups. In the half-court, North Muskegon was remarkably efficient at finding open shooters, making seven three-pointers in the first half alone to build an insurmountable lead.
"They're very well-coached," Hesperia coach Scott Warsaw said. "They were quicker than us.
They're very intelligent. They broke down our defense really fast. We
tried to rotate, and they kicked it to the open man. We couldn't fully
rotate, and they got a lot of open shots."
There was a brief moment early in the game where the Panthers were hanging around, thanks to a three-pointer by Marshall Norris that had the score at 8-5. However, Norsemen star Braylen Burrel made sure that moment was fleeting by hitting his own trey, his second of the game, and before long Hesperia was too far behind to catch up.
One bright spot early was a Nate Sherburn three-pointer to beat the first-quarter buzzer, making the score 21-10. The Norsemen, though, outscored Hesperia 31-8 in the second quarter to essentially seal the win.
Warsaw said his team was aware of what it was up against early on but focused on ways in which the players could use the experience to improve.
Hesperia's Nate Ruhstorfer heads toward the basket against defense from North Muskegon's Braylen Burrel toward Thursday's game at Hesperia. Ruhstorfer had 8 points and 8 rebounds in a 74-28 loss.
"If we're down by 50 or if we're
up by 50, (we see it as) it's 0-0," Warsaw said. "Let's get better. We all know who they
are. There's no secret. They're a machine. We
just said, 'Look, our goal is to get better.' Even at halftime, we were talking about, 'What can we do better as men, as basketball players, to compete?'"
In that vein, Warsaw said his team has shown improvement early this season at generating good shots compared to last season. The Panthers were unable to hit many of them Thursday, but it's a tangible thing they can see coming out of the work they are doing. The next step, according to their coach, is doing less thinking and more reacting on the court; he said his team was prepared for the Norsemen defense but just didn't make decisions quickly enough.
"We talk about how we break the zone or how the zone is breaking or how we want to
rotate," Warsaw said. "Instead of just doing it, we're thinking, 'Now I should do this,' and it's too late. It's just got to be muscle
memory. It will come."
Nate Ruhstorfer paced Hesperia in scoring with eight points, also grabbing eight rebounds, and Tyler Rumsey and Weston Hasted each added six points.
Hesperia's Tyler Rumsey goes to the basket while North Muskegon's Jace Thompson defends during Thursday's game at Hesperia. The Panthers lost, 74-28.
Ruhstorfer and teammate Malakai Sellers, who was held scoreless Thursday but has been a top performer for Hesperia early in the season, provide a lot of positive traits to the team, Warsaw said, but the most obvious of them is energy.
"They're high energy guys," Warsaw said. "We
always talk about, if you're going to make a mistake at least go all out."
Going forward, the Panthers hope they can translate lessons learned Thursday into games later in the season against opponents a little more vulnerable than the Norsemen proved to be. The focus is on game-to-game improvement.
"No one likes to get beaten like that, but we're
hoping we can turn this into a good experience, watch some film and say, this is
what we can do better," Warsaw said. "This is what's in our control. Hopefully we'll improve. That's all we can do."
