Andrew Holtan | The Brookings Register
VOLGA – Sioux Valley cruised in its opening postseason game as the No. 2 seeded Cossacks beat No. 7 seeded Deuel 72-22 in the Region 2A Playoffs on Tuesday night at the Cossack Center.
The Cossacks led 8-7 at the end of the first quarter and then outscored Deuel 64-15 in the final three quarters. Sioux Valley specifically pulled away in the second quarter as it had a 20-3 advantage.
Sioux Valley head coach Jamie Granum said his team came out slow and it may have been a product of starting postseason play.
“We were kind of all looking at each other like what was happening,” Granum said. Then we scored 25 [in the second quarter] and 19 [in the third] and 20 [in the fourth]. Some of it might have been postseason jitters, but to be honest, we just didn’t play very good basketball to start with. … Over the course of 32 minutes, I’m just really confident in our offense and we started to hit open shots and we turned the game around,”
The lead grew from 33-15 to 52-18 at the end of the fourth quarter. The Cossacks outscored the Cardinals 20-4 in the final quarter.
Sioux Valley has had the ability all season to pull away from teams with its 3-point shooting. On Tuesday the Cossacks were 12-of-30 from three and six different players made a triple. Granum said the depth of shooters on his team is what allows his team to go on such big runs.
“We can score in a short amount of time and we can go on little runs and sometimes, like tonight, they turn into big runs. We have so many different kids that can shoot the basketball. A couple of sophomores came off the bench tonight in Masey Top and Miley [Keating] and they combined for 14. It was really solid minutes from them. … Amari Ward caused their point guard a lot of problems for them trying to get into the stuff they want to run,” Granum said.
The Cossacks shot 49.1% from the field. They were led by Kailey Cradduck who scored 20 points. One of those 20 points was her 1,000th point for her career. Granum said it’s a big accomplishment to achieve during her junior year, but she did it without forcing up shots.
“Kailey was super efficient tonight. … Those are the most unselfish 1,000 points that I’ve ever seen because she’s such a good passer. You start to look at our shot attempts and it’s not like we’re a one-girl show offensively. The offense does run through her but there’s plenty of shots to go around. That’s what makes it special. When you don’t have everything geared up to go to one girl and then for her to get that during her junior year, I think it says that you have to play with other good players and some of the unselfishness that she has,” Granum said.
Liberty Trygstad was the other Cossack to score in double figures with 16 points. Masey Top had eight points and Miley Keating and Talya Vicnent each had six points.
Sioux Valley will host No. 3 seeded Clark/Willow Lake with a trip to the Class A SoDak 16 on the line on Thursday. The Cossacks beat the Cyclones 57-26 in the second game of the season. Since then, CWL has gone 17-2 and is now No. 9 in the Class A standings. Sioux Valley is now 19-2 and is No. 4 in the Class A standings.
Granum said that the game in mid-December will not have any effect on Thursday’s game because the two teams are very different now.
“That first game of the season for them, it was the second game of the season for us, it’s so meaningless. They are one of the younger teams in our region. They went to the State Tournament in volleyball, so they have State Tournament experience. They have a couple of coach’s kids that always make for a challenge. They are just physically bigger than us, and that’s going to be a challenge. They are 17-3 and [No. 9] in Class A, it’s going to be a game on Thursday night. We expect their best and they expect our best. We expect a close game because they’re really good and they are well-coached. We’re looking forward to it,” Granum said,
Tip off on Thursday is scheduled for 7 p.m.
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