Andrew Holtan | The Brookings Register
VOLGA – Sioux Valley used a strong third quarter to pull away from Deuel in the Region 2A Playoffs on Tuesday night as the No. 3 seeded Cossacks beat the No. 6 seeded Cardinals 59-44.
Sioux Valley beat Deuel 69-40 a little over a month ago, but the Cossacks trailed 15-12 at the end of the first quarter on Tuesday. Sioux Valley head coach Bill Vincent said he couldn’t pinpoint it, but he thought his team didn’t come out with the right energy.
“I thought we came out real flat or nervous or whatever it was. We weren’t really ourselves. … But just flat maybe partly too because of the long break. You just never know. … At the same time, hats off to Duel. They came out motivated and really got after us. They were excited to get to start fresh at 0-0, and they really came out and fought hard,” Vincent said.
Sioux Valley went on a 7-2 run to go up 19-17 at the midway point of the second quarter. It was then 22-21 when Kyle Finnesnd got a steal and made a lay up to put the Cardinals up 24-21 with 1:22 till halftime. Sioux Valley’s Brett Milton was able to make a 3-pointer just before the halftime buzzer to tie things up.
Despite what he thought wasn’t the Cossacks best half, Vincent was happy that his defense allowed it to be a tie game heading into halftime.
“To go into halftime, you know, tied at 24, playing how we felt maybe not up to par, is really hats off to our defense to just continue to hold them and keep ourselves in that game. … So defensively it was there. We did give up some second-chance points that we would have liked to have cleaned up, and I thought we did kind of as the game went on,” Vincent said.
The Cossacks opened the second half with an 11-4 run. They then led 37-32 with 2:15 to go in the third and closed the quarter with a 7-0 run to take a 44-32 lead into the fourth.
Vincent said the biggest difference in the third quarter was the effort.
“I thought at halftime we fixed our effort, got to a lot more 50-50 balls and some multiple effort plays. … We switched up defensively a little bit too, got out of our man-to-man and went zone, got in some passing lanes that way to create a couple easy baskets, got to the foul line the second half,” Vincent said.
Sioux Valley led 49-38 with 4:17 left in the game and went on a 7-0 run to put the game away. Vincent thought that last run was sparked by bench guys like McCade Nelson, Carson Wosje and Braden Danziesen. He also thought that they were the players that got things going in the third quarter.
“Those guys that didn’t start tonight I thought got us going, came in and brought what we needed to. And it was simple stuff, you know, filling your lane or getting to a hustle play, getting to a loose ball. It was just simple stuff, and that kind of got us going,” Vincent said.
Sioux Valley shot 41.8% from the field and was 6-of-21 from three. The Cossacks were led by Brady Hiltunen who had 18 points and nine rebounds. Milton and Holdyn Ruesink each had nine points. Connor Relf had eight points and Carter Sapp had five points and 10 rebounds.
Deuel shot 32.7% from the field and was 1-of-14 from three. Finnesnd led the Cardinals with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Jaxtin Winter and Sutton Benck each had seven points.
The Cossacks had a 37-29 advantage in rebounds. Sioux Valley had 12 turnovers and the Cardinals had 13. The Cossacks were 7-of-10 at the free throw line and the Cardinals were 9-of-12.
Sioux Valley will have a rematch with Hamlin on Friday night and the winner will advance to the Class A SoDak 16. The Chargers (19-2) are fourth in the Class A standings and beat the Cossacks 57-54 in Hayti on Jan. 13.
Sioux Valley (14-7) is No. 11 in the Class A standings. The reason only one of these teams gets to go to the SoDak 16 is because the No. 1 seed in Region 2A is Clark/Willow Lake and the Cyclones are third in the Class A standings.
Vincent said the first meeting doesn’t hold a lot of merit going into the playoff matchup because it was a weird game that was affected by foul trouble on both sides. He thinks this game will be close as well but will have a different feel.
“We’ll just have to bring a ton of effort up to Hamlin. Playing, you know, one of the top two, three teams in the state of South Dakota on Friday night. … I look for both teams to be a little more crisp and clear and kind of know a lot about each other. No secrets when you get this deep into it, when it’s a common opponent, a region opponent, a team that we play a couple times every year,” Vincent said.
Tip off on Friday night’s game at Hamlin is scheduled for 7 p.m.
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