EXTENDED REPORT: COUGARS OVERPOWER FLYERS IN STATE B OPENER
The Viborg-Hurley boys were ranked No. 1 in the South Dakota Prep Media Poll for most of the season, and on Thursday night against Freeman, they showed why.
Playing in the first round of the State B Basketball Tournament in Aberdeen March 20, the third-seeded Cougars turned a 33-28 halftime lead into a blowout, using an inside-outside attack and ironclad man-to-man defense that forced Freeman into 22 turnovers to run away with a 72-44 win.
The Flyers, seeded sixth, now move into the consolation round and take a 19-5 record into Friday’s game against seventh-seed Aberdeen Christian, with a spot in the consolation championship on the line; tip is set for 1:45 p.m. The Knights (18-5) lost to second-seed Dell Rapids St. Mary (22-1) 66-45 earlier Thursday evening.
Viborg-Hurley heads into a showdown with Dell Rapids St. Mary in the late game Friday night.
On the other side of the bracket, No. 1 Castlewood (22-2) will face Wessington Springs (22-2) in the semifinals at 6 p.m. while No. 8 Wall (17-7) will play No. 5 Lyman (17-7) in the consolation session at noon for a spot in the consolation championship on Saturday.
More on the Viborg-Hurley game
The Flyers found themselves playing from behind quickly in Thursday’s night’s game against the Cougars, trailing 4-0 out of the gate and then looking up at an 11-2 deficit with just over two minutes gone in the contest. But, like they would do throughout the first half, Freeman hung tough.
A Tate Sorensen three-pointer from the perimeter made it 11-5 and then — after Viborg Hurley had built a 10-point lead on two offensive rebounds that made it 15-5 — a David Water three-pointer, and field goals inside from Sorensen and Luke Peters, make it 15-12.
Luke Miller was next to connect for the Flyers, draining a three-pointer early in the second quarter that made it 19-15, but Viborg-Hurley, and the Flyers had it as 23-19 with less than 4 minutes to play in the first half before the Cougars went on an 10-3 run to make it 33-22 with less than a minute to go.
But Freeman closed out the first half on a 6-0 run thanks to three-pointers from Peters and Walter to make it 33-28 at the break, and Flyers head coach Lance Friesen said he felt lucky to be that close.
“Could we play worse?” he said of the reality in the locker room at the half. “Twelve turnovers — that’s more than our whole game average and we’re down five. But we hit some big shots down the stretch to keep it close and we were feeling fortunate at that point.”
Freeman drew as close as 33-30 early in the third on a shot in the paint from Sawyer Wipf, trailed 36-32 on a Kerrigan floater from 7 feet out and then 38-34 on a Sorensen drive and layup with 5 minutes left in the third, but that was all the life the Flyers could muster.
Viborg-Hurley went on a 10-0 run in the next 90 seconds and a 15-2 run the rest of the period to open up a 53-36 lead.
“I thought we were slow in decision making and they get some credit for their length,” said Friesen, who said he wishes he had called a timeout or two during Viborg-Hurley’s explosive third-quarter run. “They hit some shots — that always helps — and at halftime we had two goals: start boxing out and rebounding and take care of the ball, and we didn’t do either of those in that run very well. They got offensive rebounds and we started handing them the ball and not getting shot attempts. You can’t beat average teams doing that, let along great ones.”
Viborg-Hurley nearly matched its 20-8 advantage in the third quarter with a 19-8 run in the fourth, meaning the Cougars outscored Freeman 39-16 in the second half on its way to a convincing revenge win; the Flyers had defeated Viborg-Hurley 57-53 in the season-opener back in December.
“They’re a really good shooting basketball team and anytime that we did make a defensive mistake, they capitalized on it,” Viborg-Hurley head coach Shane Warwick told the Mitchell Republic. “At halftime, (I told them) we can’t have defensive mistakes. Seems like when our defense got better, our offense got going. We had a lot of guys that stepped up and made some shots. It kind of just went hand-in-hand and we kind of got on a role a little bit there.”
Junior Brady Schroedermeier poured in 21 points and senior Owen Niederbaumer scored 20 to lead the Cougars, who connected on eight three pointers in the game.
Walter — a freshman who was playing with the flu, received an IV that afternoon and vomited at halftime — led the team with 15 points. Sorensen chipped in nine.
The Cougars shot 27-for-57 from the field while the Flyers were 17-for42, including 0-for-8 from three-point range in the second half.
