By Dan Truttschel
Correspondent
The good news Tuesday night for the Big Foot boys basketball team was the Chiefs nearly surpassed 80 points in their home Rock Valley Conference contest against Clinton.
But the bad news was the Cougars put 102 on the scoreboard.
Big Foot fell behind 56-39 at halftime and couldn’t recover in a 102-77 RVC setback. The loss dropped the Chiefs to 4-5 overall and 2-3 in conference play.
Mike Goralski led three Chiefs in double figures with 15 points, followed by Zak Greco with 11 and Chucky Rohner with 10. Beau Cary added nine and Nelson Tovar had eight.
Clinton, which had four players in double figures, also enjoyed a significant advantage at the free-throw line, as it made 18 of 22 attempts, compared to just five of 10 for the Chiefs.
The loss came on the heels of a pair of setbacks last week at the Lake Mills Holiday Tournament.
Big Foot opened the two-day event Dec. 29 with an 87-36 loss to Lakeside Lutheran, and closed the tournament the following night with an 84-57 loss to Lake Mills.
Lake Mills took control from the start in the opener, as it jumped out to a 55-21 halftime lead and cruised from there.
Greco and Cary each had eight points to lead the Chiefs, followed by Thallin Baker with seven and Rohner with five.
The story was fairly similar in the finale, as Lake Mills built a 50-25 first-half lead and never looked back.
Rohner had a team-high 18 points for Big Foot, followed by Logan Eischeid with 11 and Cary with eight.
Big Foot is back in action Friday night when it travels to Beloit Turner for a 7:15 p.m. RVC matchup with the Trojans.
Turner edged Brodhead-Juda 69-67 Tuesday night to improve to 4-1 in the RVC, good for first place ahead of Clinton (3-2) and the Chiefs.
