VOLGA The Sioux Valley Cossacks saw five players score in double figures as they used a strong performance to defeat Deubrook Area 75-65 at the Cossack Center on Thursday night.
The win helped Sioux Valley improve to 10-0 at the midway point of the season ahead of a big matchup against Rapid City Christian at the Corn Palace in Mitchell on Saturday night.
It just tells me that the first half of the season went by really fast, Sioux Valley head coach Bill Vincent said of the 10-0 start. Any season goes by fast but when you win and you have fun guys to be around, you dont want it to go this fast.
Speed was the theme of the first quarter as the Cossacks looked to get Alec Squires going early. Squires and Jace Christensen each had nine points in the opening frame as Sioux Valley took a 13-4 lead. Jake Jorenby kept Deubrook in the game, however, scoring 11 points to help the Dolphins trail 25-18 at the end of the first quarter.
He was a focus for us going into the game and he was problem No. 1 for us, Vincent said of Jorenby. He was amped up and ready to come out. We lost him a couple of times and they got some good offensive boards early in the game. He kind of got going and we just challenged the guys at the quarter break to slow him down.
The Cossacks responded by holding Jorenby to two points in the second quarter and creating some distance on the scoreboard. While Squires continued to dominate in the paint, Sioux Valley used a balanced attack to take a 42-25 lead into halftime.
The Cossacks continued to pull away in the second half, taking a 66-42 lead at halftime. While Squires finished with a game-high 22 points, Hudsyn Ruesink and Maverick Nelson had 12 points each and Maxwell Engebretson and Christensen had 11 points each. The balanced scoring helped Sioux Valley take a 66-42 lead at the end of the third quarter and give them breathing room as the Dolphins cut the lead down to 10 points toward the end of the game.
Thats just fun when you know you can be balanced and see the ball spinning like that, Vincent said. That makes it tough for opponents to key on any one thing and it makes it awful fun to play basketball when everyones contributing that way.
Squires also added 10 rebounds, six assists and two steals in the win while Ruesink had five rebounds and two assists. Christensen had four assists, a rebound and a steal and Boden Schiller came up with five rebounds in the sin.
Jorenby finished with 18 points and two rebounds while Gavin Landmark had 12 points and six rebounds. J.P. Rogness had nine points, three rebounds, two steals and an assist while Braxton Bednarek had 11 points and two rebounds and Colton Trooien had six points and three rebounds.
Sioux Valley shot 39 percent including 5-for-14 (35.7%) on 3-pointers. The Cossacks also made 14-of-20 (70%) free throws, committed 11 turnovers and out-rebounded the Dolphins 37-26.
Deubrook shot 40 percent in the game including 11-for-20 (55%) on 3-pointers. The Dolphins made 9-of-11 (81.8%) free throws and had 19 turnovers.
With another win under their belt, the Cossacks will look to Saturdays matchup against Rapid City Christian. The Comets enter Saturdays game with an 8-1 record and are led by Wilson and Simon Kieffer and present another tough challenge for Sioux Valley as the two schools meet for the first time.
Were excited for that and theyre going to be excited too, Vincent said. Coach [Kyle] Courtney does a great job with his program. Hes out there in that tough region with St. Thomas More over the years. Hes had some great teams that have belonged in state tournaments and they havent necessarily been able to get there. We will have our hands full and we know weve got a lot of work to do to get ready for them.
Deubrook fell to 6-5 with the loss and will host Minneota (Minn.) in the Dakota Valley Conference Classic on Saturday night.
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