By Chris Bennett
Correspondent
Another loss by less than 10 points brought the Elkhorn Area High School boys basketball team’s season to a close.
Union Grove, seeded ninth in the regional bracket, beat eight-seeded Elkhorn 68-64 March 1 in a Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association Division 2 regional quarterfinal game at Elkhorn. Union Grove lost to No. 1 seeded-Westosha Central 88-66 March 4 in a regional semifinal game at Paddock Lake.
Elkhorn ends the season with an overall record of 6-17. The Elks went 2-12 and finished eighth in the Southern Lakes Conference. Including the postseason, the Elks lost 13 games by less than 10 points.
“It would be easy to play the “What if?” game but the reality is you are what your record says you are, and we did not have a very good record,” Elks coach Josh Skatrud said. “I wish for the sake of everyone involved we could have found a way to break through in close games and see where the season would have taken us, but it wasn’t meant to be this year.”
The Elks last advanced past the regional round of the postseason playoffs in 2009, and have won one postseason playoff game in the time since.
Union Grove beat the Elks 56-40 Feb. 25 at home in a Southern Lakes Conference game and the regular season finale for both teams.
Skatrud said Elkhorn led the Broncos in the opening game of the postseason for both teams by as many as 10 points in the first half.
“In the waning minutes of the first half we lost a couple of their shooters and they made a couple 3’s to cut into our lead,” Skatrud said.
The Elks led 34-27 at halftime. Skatrud said the Broncos (9-15, 3-11 SLC) played well in the second half, which coincided with a string of bad possessions by the Elks.
The Broncos outscored the Elks 41-30 in the second half. Dayne Fisher led the Elks with 16 points. Ross Ingersoll and Alex Easterday each scored 15 points. The Broncos’ Matt Nelson scored a game-high 17 points.
Skatrud said the Elks endured a tough season, one in which they consistently fell short in close games. Skatrud said he thought the team reached a point in early February where the weight of losing and being in tough games took its toll on the squad.
“As I have already told the returners, nobody feels sorry for us,” Skatrud said. “There is more than enough talent here to turn it around quickly, but it will take a committed group of guys to do it.”
