Washburn taken down by Trojans
By Adam Thomas, BHG News Service
Both the district and home opener happened to fall on the exact same day for the Cardinals when they faced off against the Turtle Lake-Mercer Trojans on Saturday night. The Washburn gym was relatively packed with fans from both towns for such an early season matchup, but the atmosphere was almost reminiscent of a tournament game. Despite a 21-point effort from Cardinal Jeff Rasmussen, Turtle Lake-Mercer’s Grant Singer scored 28 and carried his team to a victory over Washburn in the first district game of the year. The Cardinals didn’t exactly get off on a bad foot, keeping the game close in the first quarter. Their offense was running some very smooth cuts to the inside that surprisingly saw a guy wide open and unguarded a few times for some very easy points. While the Trojans were obviously having some shooting struggles, they gathered plenty of offensive rebounds and gave themselves plenty of second chances. At one point, Turtle Lake-Mercer brought down four offensive rebounds on a single possession before one of their players was fouled and sent to the line. What really hurt Washburn was some extremely early foul trouble for Camden Moran, being called for his third foul with just 2:52 left in the first quarter.
