The North Star boys’ basketball team poses after winning the 2026 Ramsey County tournament. (Photo by Mojo Hill)
DEVILS LAKE — Saturday’s dogfight between North Star and Nelson County featured 10 lead changes.
The Bearcats (6-2) wound up holding on to win the Ramsey County Boys’ Basketball Tournament for the second time in the last three years. They outlasted Nelson County (4-2), scoring the final eight points of a 65-57 victory at the Devils Lake Sports Center.
“We had to battle. Our shots weren’t necessarily falling,” North Star head coach Jesse Vote said. “We gave up some offensive rebounds. [The Chargers] are bangers on the boards. And we give up some weight, some size; we have to work hard to keep those guys off the glass and get every missed rebound that we can. And we just kind of hung in there. And we executed a few things down the stretch. Probably fortunate to come away with a victory.”
There were eight lead changes in the first half alone.
JD DuPreez scored the first five points to get North Star started quickly, up 5-0.
Jaxson Joramo had the first seven Nelson County points. Zane Anderson hit a go-ahead three for the Chargers, finishing a 7-0 run to make it 10-7.
Joramo, a 6-foot-6 center, collapsed on a foul and had to be helped off the court. Rider Schmidt, a 6-foot-3 forward, then carried the load for Nelson County with numerous put-backs. He collected 11 points in the first quarter.
Down 17-12, North Star swung ahead with an 8-0 run. Kade Mitchell hit a go-ahead three off the bench.
Layups by Schmidt gave Nelson County a brief 21-20 lead.
The teams traded leads four more times, leaking into the second quarter. Joramo came back quickly for Nelson County and scored five points in the second quarter.
He got inside to put Nelson County ahead 28-27 — but Peyerl made two big shots for North Star, and the momentum swung back in the Bearcats’ favor.
No singular North Star player was necessarily lighting up the scoreboard on Saturday. Ian Westlind — later named the MVP of the tournament — hit a three in the first quarter but was otherwise mostly quiet in the first half. Hunter Hagler, another all-tournament selection for North Star, made a couple baskets in the second quarter. He and Kale Prouty tied for third on the team with 10 points in the game.
“We’ve got a lot of scorers on this team, which makes it a great team,” Westlind said, “and gives us a good opportunity to win.”
North Star worked its lead up to five, but Anderson responded with a triple for Nelson County. The Bearcats’ lead was 34-32 at the half.
Outside of the inside attack from Schmidt and Joramo, Nelson County had precisely three field goals in the first half: two triples by Anderson and one off the bench by Taven Huso. The Bearcats also kept Schmidt off the board in the second quarter after his 11 first-quarter points.
“They hadn’t hit a ton of shots from the outside, and we just had to shore up a few things on the inside with some screens and some switches,” Vote said. “You don’t get a lot of preparation, when you’re playing a third game of a tournament, for a team. We’re trying to adjust on the fly, and we’re probably a team that needs repetition after repetition of things like that just to understand, in general, what we’re trying to do. But the boys did a good job. They were able to find a way.”
North Star led by as many as seven in the third quarter. It looked like it was finally taking a little bit of control.
But Schmidt got to the rim a couple times, and Tyler Cree-Beglau attacked inside as Nelson County sprung together a 6-0 run.
With Nelson County down 45-42, the small and scrappy Brody Rainsberry chose an opportune time to make his first three-pointer of the tournament. He tied it at 45 apiece. He put the Chargers on top with another basket. Then Landon Sundeen, who played Legion baseball with Rainsberry for Devils Lake last summer, found the basket.
Nelson County led, 49-45.
Mitchell hit a three to get North Star back within one. Mitchell scored eight points in the third quarter to finish second on the team with 13 overall.
Another triple by Rainsberry — who suddenly had his adrenaline rushing — made it 52-48 Nelson County.
But the Bearcats just wouldn’t go away. DuPreez landed his second triple of the game to make it a one-point game heading into the fourth quarter.
After North Star turned it over, Anderson had an and-one to get Nelson County up by five.
In the end, however, the Chargers couldn’t sustain their offensive attack all the way through.
Prouty knocked down a three for North Star. Westlind hit a pair of free throws to give North Star the lead back.
Schmidt made one last layup to tie the game, 57-57, but it turned out to be Nelson County’s final points of the game. Schmidt had a game-high 17 points. He, Joramo and Anderson were all-tournament selections for Nelson County.
“They’ve got some big post guys,” Westlind said. “So all we were trying to do is just lock down the post. And then they started making some, but it was all right. We cooled them down.”
Hagler came through with a huge go-ahead and-one. Westlind scored the final five points of the game — all on free throws. North Star only made two field goals in the fourth quarter, but Westlind’s 9-for-11 performance from the stripe proved to be the difference.
“He’s been tough at the free throw line for us,” Vote said. “He’s one that we want to get the ball in his hands, hopefully to go win the basketball game. We struggled in that fourth quarter, for sure. We kind of went cold, and we were trying to find anything possible that would work for us.
“I know Coach [Jacob] Hagler and I kind of looked at each other and we were just like, ‘We don’t know. We’re not really sure what we need to do. Someone’s just got to step up and make a play.’ And fortunately, we forced them into maybe some tougher shots, and we rebounded the ball, and we were able to secure a victory.”
Westlind finished with a team-high 16 points. The 6-foot-4 sophomore forward, now with a tournament MVP under his belt, totaled 63 points over the three-day tournament.
Westlind broke out last year as a freshman. He’s certified a big role for himself on a deep Bearcats squad.
“My three-ball is coming back, and my pull-up,” Westlind said. “And it’s just getting the screen ready for the guys and being able to score.”
The Bearcats have their season rolling in the right direction with an early-season tournament championship under their belt.
“We said we were on a mission,” Vote said. “We wanted to go in and we wanted to win this tournament. … We’ve kind of got this new group of kids that are slowly gelling together. And hopefully, it’s just the beginning of things to happen for us.”
North Star’s next game will be its district opener. The Bearcats host North Prairie on Friday.
“It gives us a great start to the season,” Westlind said of the win, “and confidence for the rest of the season.”
