Vying to open their WIAC season with a win, the young mens basketball teams of UW-Platteville and UW-Superior faced off against each other on Dec. 1 at Bo Ryan Court. With only one team able to walk away the victor, the Yellowjackets fell as the Pioneers came out on top.

“It is always nice to start out the season on a high note,” Charlie Lohoff, a junior guard, said. “Superior is a good team that will win more games in the conference than a lot of people expect, so it was a good win.”

Shooting was a major strength for the Pioneers, who were on fire during the last 10 minutes of the game, making nine of their last 10 shots en route to their 89-78 victory over the Yellowjackets.

“We knew that we had to get a win, and it feels really good to get the win in the first game that we played,” Curt Hanson, sophomore shooting guard, said. “We didn’t want to leave that gym with a loss, and we completed our goal.”

The game was pretty evenly matched during the first half until UW-P captured the lead with a little over four minutes left, and they never gave it back. The most the Yellowjackets led by at any one point in the game was four points.

“The key was to stop their transition game and blow up things that they liked to do,” Josh Langenfeld, sophomore point guard, said.

Offensively the Pioneers shot the ball exceptionally well with outside shooting being one of their biggest assets.

Hanson made five out of seven three-point shots and led UW-P with 23 points. Three other Pioneers got into the double digits as Mike Shaw accounted for 15 points while Langenfeld and Jeff Skemp had 13 points apiece.

With a crowd of approximately 600 fans in attendance, the Pioneers utilized the energy coming from the stands in their performance on the court.

“We wanted to come out and be the aggressor,” Lohoff said. “We wanted to get the crowd into the game as well. If the student section can be as vocal as they were against Superior, playing at UW-P will be quite difficult for opposing teams.”

With some tough WIAC opponents on the horizon, in the form of UW-Eau Claire and UW-River Falls, the Pioneers are looking to keep their winning ways alive by continuing to play with the same high intensity they have thus far.

“We feel that the next couple games are big because they are wins that we need to get,” Hanson said. “Even though they are going to be tough games, we need these wins, and we feel like we can obtain these goals if we play our style of basketball.”

The Pioneers look to improve their 4-1 overall record as they host the Falcons at 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 8.

“We expect the unexpected, and we just need to worry about what we do best as a team,” Langenfeld said. “If we do that, we can be very successful.”

“We feel really good right now and feel that we can still make a lot of noise in our conference,” Hanson said. “We definitely have a lot of high hopes for this season.”