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FOND DU LAC – Facing the top squad in the state on Friday night, the Fond du Lac boys basketball team needed to be close to perfect. The Cardinals battled hard and never gave in, but they made a few too many mistakes.

Tyrese Haliburton and Quincy Anderson both scored 23 points as Oshkosh North took an early lead and held off a few Fond du Lac challenges en route to a 89-74 win over the Cardinals in Fox Valley Association play on Friday night at Fond du Lac.

“I just thought we didn’t execute a lot of things we wanted to do coming into the game,” Fond du Lac coach Mark Ziebell said. “I thought offensively in the first half, we turned the ball over quite a bit. I thought that really hurt us and that was one of the things we talked about from the very beginning. We fell behind early.”

A Sam Fredrickson bucket to start the game gave Fond du Lac (8-6, 6-4 Fox Valley Association) the initial advantage, but that would be the only time the Cardinals led on Friday.

Philip Flory came back with a 3-pointer to put Oshkosh North (14-0, 10-0 FVA), the top-ranked team in Division 1 in the latest Associated Press poll, ahead 3-2 and the Spartans quickly built a double-digit edge on the strength of terrific shooting and transition offense. Fond du Lac did claw its way back, cutting the deficit to 32-29 late in the first half on a Peyton Head basket. But Oshkosh North responded. Following Head’s bucket, Anderson hit a shot and then Brett Ellestad drained consecutive 3-pointers to put the Spartans back up by 11 points.

Anderson tipped in a basket at the buzzer to send Oshkosh North into halftime with a 45-36 advantage. Another Head bucket to begin the second half trimmed the Spartans’ lead to seven points, but that was the closest Fond du Lac could get as Oshkosh North maintained at least a nine-point edge the rest of the way. Apart from Haliburton and Anderson, who both hit three 3-pointers and were close to unstoppable for periods of Friday’s game, Shane Wissink added 15 points for the Spartans. Flory chipped in 12 points and Ellestad had 11.

“Defensively, I didn’t think we did a good job,” Ziebell said. “I mean we almost gave up 100 points. We didn’t get out to shooters, we left air space. We didn’t get tight to their shooters. I just didn’t think we executed a lot of the things we wanted to do on either end of the floor.”

Luke Loewe paced the Cardinals with a game-high 29 points, hitting four 3-pointers and almost single-handedly keeping Fond du Lac within striking distance for stretches of the second half. Drew Jorgensen added 19 points for Fondy, knocking down five 3-pointers. Fredrickson chipped in 12 points and Head had 10.

“I felt we worked and played a little bit harder in the second half,” Ziebell said. “I didn’t think we played as hard as we could have in the first half. Our kids have been resilient all year. Every time we’ve had a tough loss, we’ve responded and learned something from that loss. It’s made us better. We got beat by a top-tier team in the state today and our expectations as coaches is our kids will respond. We’ll learn from this and come back better.”

Oshkosh North 45 44 — 89
Fond du Lac 36 38 — 74

Oshkosh North — Shane Wissink 15, Quincy Anderson 23, Josh Lieb 3, Tyrese Haliburton 23, Brett Ellestad 11, Matt Hickey 2, Philip Flory 12. 3-pointers: 13 (Wissink 2, Anderson 3, Lieb, Haliburton 3, Ellestad 3, Flory). FTs: 16-20. Fouls: 9.

Fond du Lac — Drew Jorgensen 19, Jack Cole 2, Sam Fredrickson 12, Peyton Head 10, Luke Loewe 29, Devon Krzanowski 2. 3-pointers: 9 (Jorgensen 5, Loewe 4). FTs: 3-5. Fouls: 14.