CARLTON- The North Woods boys knocked the Carlton-Wrenshall Raptors from the ranks of the unbeatens on Monday with a second-half haymaker and an 81-66 road win.
The Raptors led most of the first half, but the Grizzlies hung right on their heels. Trailing 25-21 with five minutes left in the first half, the Grizzlies got a four-point trip to tie when Luke Will was fouled on a score, and Jonah Burnett got a putback on Will’s errant free throw. North Woods trailed again at 31-26, but five points from Burnett on two trips down the floor kept the Raptors in reach at 33-31.
C/W was up 35-31 when Louie Panichi stepped to the line for the Grizzlies with 12 seconds left for a pair. Panichi dropped in the first but missed the second, and the ball wound up in the hands of Keenan Whitney, who drained a triple as time ran out for the 35-35 halftime tie.
“Keenan had his first game back in a few years, and these were his first varsity minutes ever,” Grizzlies Head Coach Andrew Jugovich said. “We threw him into the fire and we’re glad to have him. His defensive intensity and speed was a complete game changer.”
After Panichi opened the second half with a scoring drive and Aidan Hartway dropped in a free throw, the Raptors tied the score at 38-38 with a three ball, and it looked as if the first-half slugfest was picking up where it left off.
But over the next eight minutes the Grizzlies completely rewrote the script, locking down on defense and reeling off a 17-0 blitz with scores from Burnett, Panichi, and Talen Jarshaw to take a dominating 55-38 lead. The Raptors got back to within 11 at 71-60, but North Woods never relinquished control, picking up the 81-66 win.
“At halftime I said, ‘Hey, it’s zero-zero,’” Jugovich said. “We don’t win too many second halves so we have to kick it into gear. And right off the start in the second half we got the lead and we never gave it up.”
Panichi topped the Grizzlies in points with 30. Burnett was right on his heels with 27, a total that puts the Grizzlies’ leading scorer at the top of all scorers in all classes in the state with 229 points, eight ahead of Justin Courneya of 8A Win-E-Mac High School in Erskine.
“He’s our guy and we feed off him,” Jugovich said of Burnett. “The ball is going to go through him and things are going to happen. We’ve just got to make sure he keeps going to his strong points, staying out of foul trouble, playing good defense and grabbing boards, and his points are going to come. We knew coming in that Louie was probably going to be our second leading scorer and he’s been taking over that role.”
Northland
Burnett had a monster game on Friday at Northland, hitting for 50 points on 23-of-43 shooting and grabbing 20 rebounds as the Grizzlies crushed the Eagles 107-88.
Burnett found the mark from all over the court, feasting in the paint on slashing drives, short jumpers and putbacks, and canning jumpers from the free throw line and beyond the arc as the Grizzlies relentlessly pulled away from the Eagles in the first half, leading 63-45 at the break. The game evened out in the second half, but the Eagles couldn’t make any headway as the Grizzlies crossed the century mark for the first time this season.
“Jonah had 31 at halftime, and his effective field goal percentage was 56 percent,” Jugovich said. “He took a lot of shots, but he shot well.”
Panichi also had a hot hand for the Grizzlies, pouring in 25 points, and Kalvyn Benner dropped in 11. As a team, the Grizzlies shot 47.5 percent, scoring 70 points in the paint.

Moose Lake/Willow River
Thursday’s home matchup against Moose Lake/Willow River was a battle that presented the Grizzlies with their toughest physical matchup yet. The Rebels had the height, muscle and speed to turn this into a thoroughbred race, and ML/WR was the one who broke from the gate the fastest.
Panichi opened the scoring with a triple, but with the speedy Rebels closing down fast break opportunities the Grizzlies were challenged to score in their half-court sets. ML/WR effectively worked the ball inside and sprinted out to an 18-7 lead. A North Woods timeout brought no solution, as the Rebels extended the lead to 15, 29-14. By the half, the Grizzlies had whittled the deficit to 35-25.
The Grizzlies did their best to fight back in the second half, but with teams so evenly matched North Woods could do little more than keep pace with the Rebels. The Grizzlies were down 17 with just over five minutes left in the game but trimmed the deficit to nine, 83-74, with 2:20 left. Two three-balls by Burnett and another by Jarshaw in the final 1:20 got North Woods to within seven at 89-82, but that’s as close as they would get in the 92-85 loss.