Fetting navigates Ada-Borup to win

Ada-Borup's Blake Fetting fights for possession against Fertile-Beltrami's Alex Schmalenberg during Tuesday's game in Ada.

Trailing 51-44 to Fertile-Beltrami midway through the second half, Ada-Borup needed a game changing shot.

It got one out of the hands of junior guard Blake Fetting.

Fetting, who finished with a game-high 21 points, nailed a second half triple with 7 minutes and 36 seconds left to relax Ada-Borup into a 9-2 scoring run en route to a 71-62 win over the Falcons Tuesday in Ada.

“Blake was really aggressive tonight, and when he’s on, he’s tough to defend.” Ada-Borup coach Trevor Stewart said. “He not only hit some big shots, but he got our defense back on track with some physical play.”

Prior to Fetting’s 3-pointer, Fertile-Beltrami (11-6) was thriving on an 18-4 run it used to gain the 7 point advantage, as Ada-Borup’s defense was out of whack at the beginning of the second half.

Fertile-Beltrami put forth a balanced scoring attack against Ada-Borup (14-3), as Mitchell Mosher and Christian Lundberg both scored 14 points while Charlie Duckstad finished with 13 points he collected from physical moves in the paint.

“Defensively we panicked, and we started playing without discipline,” Stewart said. “We took some chances and threw ourselves out of position and Fertile-Beltrami made us pay.”

But one area the Falcons failed to hold Ada-Borup’s mistakes against it was on the free throw line. Fertile-Beltrami went to the line for 23 tries, but it only made 8, as Ada-Borup doubled the Falcons productivity from the line with 16 made free throws.

Then again, it was a miss by Lance Ruebke which started the Cougars distancing efforts.

Tied 55-55 with 3:46 to play, Ruebke went to the line for a one-and-one bonus try. His attempt ricocheted long, but he managed to out-hustle a defender for the rebound and drive through the paint to score while sustaining contact.

Ruebke, who finished with 13 points, redeemed himself by hitting the ‘and-one’ try from the line to complete the three-point play and set Ada-Borup on the 16-7 run it needed to end the game.