![\"Lake](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773538578_797_TNH-L-BKC-Lake-Erie-0314-51.jpg\")
Lake Erie College’s Kai Bloom goes up for a shot against Michigan Tech March 14 in North Canton. (Tim Phillis – For The News-Herald)<\/p>\nNORTH CANTON \u2014 When it was in doubt for Michigan Tech, it took it inside.<\/p>\n
That was more than enough for the tall Huskies and a problem throughout for the Lake Erie men\u2019s basketball team in its NCAA Division II tournament opener.<\/p>\n
Michigan Tech (27-6) pounded the ball inside en route to 36 free throws and wore down the Storm in the second half as it posted an 83-73 victory on the campus of Walsh University.<\/p>\n
The Huskies advanced to the Round of 32, and LEC closed its season at 23-9 but left Stark County with plenty of reasons to be optimistic going forward. The program made the NCAA tournament for the first time as a D-II program, and with a roster full of underclassmen with no senior starters, Coach Kyle Conley was optimistic going forward.<\/p>\n
Lake Erie College’s Kai Bloom goes up for a shot against Michigan Tech March 14 in North Canton. (Tim Phillis – For The News-Herald)<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope this becomes the new norm,\u201d said the LEC head coach. \u201cObviously, we\u2019re a young group. Today\u2019s world of college basketball is very unique so it\u2019s hard to imagine what\u2019s happening with changes, but I think a lot of guys will be back. I think the bar has been raised, and there\u2019s a new standard. I hope we can continue to raise that bar.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Storm came ready as the ball was tipped and went toe to toe with Michigan Tech, which led, 46-45, at the break on a 3-pointer at the buzzer.<\/p>\n
LEC was pressing, deflecting passes and draining 3s (8 of 15 in the first half), but the Huskies came out strong after the break, and at the 11-minute mark after two free throws by Jesse Napgezek, Tech built its biggest lead to that point at 65-56.<\/p>\n
The Storm wouldn\u2019t go quietly down the stretch. A basket by Gio Moore cut the lead to 76-72 with 2 minutes to play, but the Huskies answered with a Nate Abel basket and two free throws by Marcus Tomashek and an 80-72 advantage with a minute to play that all but clinched the win.<\/p>\n
Free throws were a huge part of Tech\u2019s victory. It attempted 16 more than LEC, and made 27 of 36. Napgezek (20 points) was 14 of 18 from the charity stripe, and Tomashek (who scored a game-high 34 points and made five 3s) was 7 of 7.<\/p>\n
With LEC\u2019s constant pressure, the Storm\u2019s MO is trying to wear out teams with their pressure and up-tempo approach, but it was Tech\u2019s inside play with 6-foot-10 posts Dawson Nordgaard and Grant Warren and ability to draw fouls that was the difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur thought was if we handled their pressure a little bit, we could get whatever we wanted inside,\u201d said Tech coach Josh Buettner. \u201cGrant and Dawson are two 6-10 guys and they had no one to match up with them. And Jesse didn\u2019t a great job getting to the free-throw line.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Storm\u2019s up-tempo style of play is predicated on making shots to set up their full-court press. The second half made that difficult as LEC was just 2 of 16 from 3-point range.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we were playing with great pace in the first half,\u201d said Conley. \u201c\u2026 Tech really clamped us defensively. We didn\u2019t shoot well in the second half, and for us when the ball doesn\u2019t go through the basket, it\u2019s hard for us to get our press set. That was the difference in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
LEC shot 37.3 percent from the floor (25 of 67) while Tech was an efficient 25 of 44 for 56.8 percent. The Huskies also outrebounded the Storm, 39-28, and took advantage from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew their size was going to play an impact in the game,\u201d said Conley. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t even their 5s. Their wings were able to get to their spots, and back us down and get to the free-throw line. When we tried to get stops down the stretch, we kept putting them on the line. They took advantage of our lack of size.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kai Bloom was LEC\u2019s leading scorer with 21 points and Alanas Castillo had 15 points and three 3s. Point guard Amari Williams added eight points, five rebounds and three assists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NORTH CANTON \u2014 When it was in doubt for Michigan Tech, it took it inside. That was more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2300,136,138,137,6608,241,726],"class_list":["post-138638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-college-sports","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-lake-erie-college","tag-latest-headlines","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}