Rematch with North Woods next for L-BF
Though Thursday’s tournament opener didn’t go into overtime like the regular season opener, the Section 7A boys basketball matchup between Littlefork-Big Falls and Chisholm remained competitive until the final buzzer.
The Vikings avenged a home loss from last December by defeating the Bluestreaks in the Hibbing Memorial Arena, 50-43.
“Chisholm is certainly a team that we respect,” said L-BF head coach Jeff Maish. “When you’re coached by Bob McDonald, who is the winningest coach in the state, this guy knows what he’s doing.
“When I first took over coaching six years ago, my philosophy is to try to get my program to be just like Bob’s program, and we’re on our way.”
While the Bluestreaks applied a full-court press in an effort to force the Vikings into committing turnovers, Maish said L-BF prepared for the pressure defense.
“There’s always some jitters when you come and you play in this atmosphere,” he said. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s here or in Chisholm or in Littlefork. When we play Chisholm, we look at Chisholm as one of those elite teams.”
The Vikings took their first double-digit lead with 8:11 left in the first half when Garrett Larson completed a 3-point play from the charity stripe for a 16-6 advantage.
L-BF’s lead fluctuated between nine and 11 points late in the first half before Chisholm’s Aden Casey made a 3-pointer to cut the Vikings’ lead to 26-18 at halftime.
“We had an eight-point lead (at halftime in the regular season) game, too, and came out and didn’t play very well in the second half,” Maish said. “We were a little concerned going into (halftime of the tournament game) about the same thing.”
Chisholm was down by six points late in the second half when the momentum shifted in the Bluestreaks’ favor to be able to tie the game.
Vikings guard Taylor DeLack was called for an intentional foul with 4:35 to play. Maish objected to the call and received a technical foul.
“The technical came awful quick; I was very surprised,” Maish said. “But you know what, (the referee) had a reason to give it to me.
“After I got it, I said, ‘Oops, I probably shouldn’t have got it at that juncture of the game.’ Down the stretch, our big guys were getting hacked down low, and we were hacking them as well. It was going both ways.”
Casey made three of four shots from the charity stripe to trim L-BF’s lead to 40-37 as the Bluestreaks maintained possession of the basketball.
Chisholm was unable to score on that possession and ended up having its center, Mitch Rusten, foul out of the game with 3:53 remaining.
However, shortly thereafter on a subsequent possession, Casey made a 3-pointer to tie the game at 40-40.
L-BF regained the lead with 3:27 remaining when Larson made the first of two free throws. After the Vikings rebounded off of the missed free throw, Larson was back at the charity stripe 4 seconds later and again made the first of two free throws for a 42-40 lead.
With less than 2 minutes remaining, Larson completed another 3-point play from the charity stripe and Casey sank another 3-pointer to keep L-BF’s lead at two points.
After a turnover gave Chisholm an opportunity to tie the game or take the lead, Aaron Musburger missed a jump shot and the Vikings rebounded.
As the Bluestreaks were forced into fouling to prevent L-BF from running out the clock, DeLack made it a two-possession game at 47-43 when he sank two free throws with 38.4 seconds left and sealed the victory.
“We like getting the ball in (DeLack’s) and (Larson’s) hands toward the end of the game,” Maish said. “No worries about the free throws there from those guys.”
Larson ended up with a “double-double” for the Vikings with 18 points and 12 rebounds. Tyler Vork added 12 points.
Casey had a game-high 21 points, including four 3-pointers.
L-BF, which improved its season record to 13-10, advances to the Section 7A quarterfinals to face the Subsection’s top seed, North Woods, in a game set for 2:45 p.m. today at Hibbing Memorial.
The quarterfinal winner advances to Wednesday night’s semifinals, which will also be held at Hibbing Memorial.
North Woods opened the tournament Thursday winning against the No. 8 seed, Mountain Iron-Buhl, 71-40.
Maish said he will be preparing for the rematch with the Grizzlies after having lost to them at home during the regular season.
L-BF 50, Chisholm 43
L-BF 26 24 — 50
Chisholm 18 25 — 43
L-BF: Taylor DeLack 7, Garrett Larson 18, Tyler Vork 12, Bryce Burmeister 5, Jeff Fry 8.
Chisholm: Aaron Musburger 1, Aden Casey 21, Austin Campbell 5, Andrew Jamnick 2, Andrew Marturano 6, Mitch Rusten 8.
