Traverse City Record-Eagle

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  • Kody Kleinrichert shoots the ball against Kalkaska Friday. Record-Eagle/Keith King

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February 4, 2012

Sheldon, Glads roll

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TRAVERSE CITY — By MIKE ECKERT

meckert@record-eagle.com

For a quarter, it was a game.

After that, it was all St. Francis.

The Gladiators outscored Kalkaska 58-15 in the final three quarters on Friday for a 75-28 Lake Michigan Conference win.

St. Francis (11-1, 8-0) only led 17-13 after the first quarter.

"I thought Kalkaska played a great first quarter," Glads coach Keith Haske said. "When we were down there, we were ahead 40-8. So, they're doing a great job getting those kids to play better basketball."

Then, the Glads got rolling. Sean Sheldon scored nine points in the second quarter while Byron Bullough had eight for a 51-23 lead at the half over the Blazers (0-12, 0-8 LMC).

"Sean started taking it inside and they don't have anybody with size to stop him," Haske said. "Our pressure got to them a little bit, but I think the biggest thing was we started taking the ball to the basket. With their lack of size, we should do that."

Sheldon finished with 14 points, five rebounds, two assists and a block while Bullough had 12 points. Michael Jenkins had 10 points and Kody Kleinrichert had nine points and five rebounds.

Kalkaska had 13 points from Will Noble and nine from Nate Cummings.

"We kind of seem to be in a mid-season slump, if you ask me," Haske said. "We're not executing a lot of things. So we did (try to fine-tune things). Right now, we're a lot of one-on-one stuff. We can get away with it, but when we get up and play better teams, we've got to do a better job of reversing the ball and getting it down low before we shoot."

St. Francis will need to break out of the slump soon, with a difficult road ahead. That starts on Tuesday with a trip to Boyne City.

"They're going to be fired up and ready," Haske said. "Everybodys backs are up against the wall in the league. They can't afford another loss. So they're going to be coming after us."

From there, St. Francis travels to Harbor Springs and Grayling, before returning home to face East Jordan.

"I'm excited," Haske said. "I think our team needs that. We need to go on the road and face really good teams. We've been a little bit stale, so I'm looking forward to that. It should get us going. We need to find out where we're at."

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