MADISON The Sioux Valley girls basketball team advanced to the state tournament in convincing fashion on Thursday night as the Cossacks beat Miller 60-34 in the Class A SoDak 16.
Its the first time since 2017 that the Cossack girls have gone to the state tournament. Head coach Jamie Granum said this team deserves its spot in the final eight because of what theyve been through the last couple years.
Im just so excited for the kids, Granum said. We talked before the game about how they just earned this game. They deserved it. I always go back to the time that they spent as players and families, this is what youre chasing. A chance to go to a State Tournament and make some noise.
Weve felt the last couple of years that weve had really good teams, but our region was loaded. So, stuff like this, it also takes a lot of luck and a lot of breaks. But if theres a group in South Dakota that is more deserving of this, I dont know of another one. Obviously Im biased, but they really deserve it because of the time they put in.
The two teams each scored 13 points in the first quarter and then the Cossacks then ran away with it. Sioux Valley outscored Miller 13-3 in the second and 14-7 in the third to take a 40-23 lead into the fourth. The Cossacks then had a 20-11 advantage in the fourth.
The Cossacks held the Rustlers to 27.1% shooting and Miller was 4-of-20 from three. Granum said Sioux Valleys success all began with how they played on the defensive end.
We talked about how defensively weve been playing really well, Granum said. Defense is a way to keep us in every game. I dont know if it will necessarily win us games, like the saying goes, but it will definitely keep you in a game. Tonight, we knew if we could survive that first quarter with some of the jitters, we jacked up a couple of threes that hit the backboard pretty hard, so you knew that we were pretty amped up and ready to play.
But defensively at the end of the first quarter, we were taking them out of things that they wanted to run and were really locking them to one side of the floor. I just felt that we would get it rolling offensively at some point.
Sioux Valley was led by its lone senior in Keyra Kruse. She had 18 points and eight rebounds in the win. Granum said it was nice to see Kruse perform so well in a win or go home game.
[Kruse] was super determined tonight. Shes been super determined all year, so shes kind of taken over that leadership role on the team. Tonight there was just a mindset from her of Im not going to let us lose tonight and she had that feel. Shes the one thats stuck this through since she started playing basketball in the second grade. Theres no one more deserving [of a State Tournament] than she is and Im super happy for her and proud of her, Granum said.
The Cossacks shot 46.8% from the field and were 11-of-17 from three. Sioux Valley had three other players score in double figures as Talya Vincent had 15 points, Kailey Cradduck had 13 and Amari Ward had 10. Cradduck also had nine rebounds.
Granum said there was a lot of unselfish play on Thursday night and that led to a strong offensive output.
Offensively, we just moved the ball well. We found [Vincent] some space and she kind of got us rolling. [Ward] hit a couple of big threes for us. Shes been a huge addition to our team, just on the defensive end especially, but her offense is surprising to people outside of Sioux Valley, but also a little surprising to us the way she can score the ball, Granum said.
Sioux Valley had a 37-25 advantage in rebounds. The Cossacks had 16 turnovers and the Rustlers had 19. Sioux Valley was 11-of-17 at the free throw line and Miller was 4-of-8.
The Cossacks will be the No. 7 seed in the Class A State Tournament in Spearfish next weekend. The tournament begins on March 13 and Sioux Valley will play No. 2 seeded Dakota Valley at 7 p.m. Central time. The Panthers beat the Cossacks 73-65 on Feb. 4.
Granum said hes looking forward to having three guaranteed games next weekend and getting another shot at the No. 2 team in the class.
Were going to be able to spend three days with people we like to be around and like-minded people, so thats what will make it fun. Its been since 2014 that the Sioux Valley girls have been to State and since 2017 that weve played in a SoDak 16 type game. We matchup with Dakota Valley to open and that will be a rematch. We played really well offensively in our first matchup and were going to have to play equally as well in our second matchup, Granum said.
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