The perfect season for the De Pere Redbirds boys basketball team is still intact and there’s just one game left to play. De Pere advanced to the WIAA Division 1 Boys Basketball Championship by fending off a gritty Kettle Moraine squad 55-44 Friday night at the Kohl Center. De Pere improves to 29-0 on the season and they’ll return to the title game for the first time since a heartbreaking, triple overtime loss to Madison Memorial 12 years ago.
Head Coach Brian Winchester said after the game, “We want to win it for that team, this year’s team, our school and the whole community.”
They’ll get their shot after finally breaking away from the Lasers in the 2nd half. De Pere was up 27-24 at halftime but Kettle Moraine knocked down 4 straight three point shots to take their only lead of the game at 36-34. That’s when the Redbirds went on a 10-0 run to take the lead back for good. The Lasers closed to within 44-41 but senior Hogan Demovsky took his only shot from the floor in the left corner and dropped in a three to stretch the advantage back to 49-41. Will Hornseth did most of the heavy lifting offensively, finishing with a game high 19 points on 9 of 12 shots from the floor. De Pere capped off the victory by going 6 for 6 from the line in the final 90 seconds.
At his post game press conference, Winchester knew his team was in a battle, rare for the number one ranked team in the state that played only two close games all year.
Senior John Kinziger had a difficult night from the floor, going just 4 of 13 but he was perfect from the line (7/7) and finished with 15 points, a team high 9 rebounds and 4 assists playing all but :20 of the game. The Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association announced it’s Mr. Basketball winners for 2023 and Kinziger will share the honor with Pewaukee’s Milan Momcilovic which is just fine with him.
De Pere now has a shot to become the first undefeated state champion since Appleton Xavier in 2017 and they could bring home the first gold ball in hoops since the boys from De Pere won the state’s Class B title way back in 1934 when they defeated New Lisbon 22-19.
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