OAKES, ND (NewsDakota.com) – The Oakes Tornadoes boys basketball team is playing some of their best basketball as the season gets close to the midway point. They picked up their third win in four games on Tuesday January 11th against the Napoleon-Gackle/Streeter Imperials by a score of 70-53.

The Tornadoes came out strong and hyper aggressive with Adler Paeper specifically forcing turnovers and getting 10 points in the first quarter of action going 5/5 from the field. Noah Sundby also got off to a hot start going 3/4 in the first quarter of play. The Tornadoes took the lead and didn’t look back after that. Napoleon fought hard in the first half however with Trenton Erberle getting 8 points in the first quarter to keep his team within 8 points with the score 20-12.

The second quarter saw a lot less scoring as both teams had trouble getting to the bucket. The Tornadoes also got into foul trouble late in the half with Sundby, Paeper, and Andrew Wolff taking some time on the bench. In spite of that the Tornadoes retained a 35-26 lead going into half time.

The third quarter was the quarter of Erberle and Wolff. The Imperials would come out firing and bring the Tornado lead down a bit going consistently to Erberle who had amazing post play all game long. He tallied up 12 points in the third quarter going 6/6 from the field. The Tornadoes would respond late in the quarter to build the lead out to 12 led by Wolff’s 8 points, going 4/5. The Tornadoes would lead 55-43 after three.

The Imperials couldn’t get much going in the 4th with the Tornadoes playing lock down defense and double teaming Erberle holding him to 4 points in the quarter. Braxton Ryum would nail a couple 3’s to make it intersting early but Oakes quickly adjusted. The Tornadoes would slowly expand the lead out to 70-53 which would end up being the final score.

Scoring was led by Napoleon’s Erberle who went 14/16 from the field and 1/2 on foul shots for a total of 29 points. Oakes was led in scoring by Paeper who went 10/12 for 20 points and by Wolff who went 7/11 for 16 points.

The Tornadoes are now 3-6 on the year as the Imperials fall to 2-6.

The Tornadoes next play Leola-Frederick, SD on Friday January 13th at 7:oo PM. Pregame on 1220 AM/100.3 FM KDDR begins at 6:45 PM.