The Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial boys basketball team coupled an early shooting barrage with a stingy defensive effort Thursday night to upend Minnesota Valley Lutheran 86-67 in a semifinal game of the Kwik Trip Holiday Tournament at Bethany Lutheran’s Sports and Fitness Center.
LCWM, which nailed nine 3-pointers over the opening 18 minutes, assumed an early 19-6 advantage when senior guard Ethan Wiens connected from 3-point range six minutes into the contest. The Knights (7-1) continued their offensive firepower the rest of the half — 15 points from senior guard Jamis Ulman and 12 from senior wing Jack Brockman — to expand the margin to 52-31.
“We haven’t shot it very well the past couple of games but we finally turned it on tonight,” Brockman, who finished with 20 points, said. “We were really emphasizing on not giving up the dump-offs defensively because they like to drive and then dump it off to the bigs. We wanted to force them to make driving baskets rather than giving up dump-offs.
“It was really fun to finally shoot it well. We’re usually a good shooting team, but we’ve been in kind of a slump as a team. We started shooting it well and when you play good defense it turns into offense. We lost four regulars from last year, but we went through a lot in the summer and now we’re here.”
Sophomore guard Jack Goeringer came off the bench to drain a pair of first-half triples for the Knights, who ended up making 34 of 66 shots from the field for 51.5% compared to the Chargers’ (6-1) 22 of 49 for 44.8%. Senior guard Benjamin Pearson fired in 16 of his game-high 34 points in the first half.
“This group of seniors has been playing together for a long time and we’ve had guys step up to fill in spots,” Ulman, who put through a team-best 21 points, said. “We’ve come together as a team, we’re having a lot of fun together. We like to make the right play and play with a lot of energy. Defense has been our main focus and it shows during games.
“We went out and played our game and didn’t let them run up and down like they do against other teams. Our game is to play good defense, limit other teams to one shot and then push it in transition. If it’s not there, we make the right plays by either driving to the basket or kicking it back out.”
Things weren’t quite as smooth for the Knights in the second half as 10 turnovers slowed things down and produced 34 points. However, the Chargers committed 15 of their 22 miscues over the final 18 minutes and never threatened. Wiens and sophomore guard Charlie Gengler scored 13 points for the winners, who also received a team-best 10 rebounds from senior wing Ethan Anderson.
“It was an all-around team effort defensively and then we executed our game plan.” LCWM coach Logan Manska said. “We have seven guys who can really score the basketball and all seven were confident out there tonight. That combination of inside-out is the way we want to play and it was good to see our threes fall.”
LCWM looks to win its second Kwik Trip title in three years when it faces New Ulm in the final at 8:30 p.m. Friday. The Chargers play Maple River in the third-place game at 6:30 p.m. Friday.
Other games
New Ulm 67, Maple River 38: James Osborne and Colton Benson each scored 18 points for New Ulm in their semifinal win.
Wyatt Birr led Maple River with 11 points.
St. Clair 58, Fairmont 56: Connor Whittet led the Cyclones with 18 points in their consolation victory.
Levi Pooley led the Cardinals with 26 points.
St. Clair plays Mankato Loyola for fifth place at 8 p.m. Friday, while Fairmont plays New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva in the seventh-place game at 6 p.m. Friday.
Mankato Loyola 74, New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva 52: Quinn Kelly and Chase Kijenski each scored 17 points for the Crusaders in a consolation bracket win.
Jackson Chrz led the Panthers with 14 points.