DEVILS LAKE — Four Winds/Minnewaukan never led in Saturday’s game.
That is, until the final 26 seconds.
The Indians turned in a quality defensive fourth quarter after switching from man-to-man to a zone. Senior Marial Deng finished what they’d started.
With the final minute of regulation ticking by, Deng did a spin move, then sprung up a fadeaway.
It landed. All the Indians needed after that was one more stop — and they got it.
“I felt like I had a struggling game. But our team stepped up,” Deng said. “So it was a great team win. And that last shot, it happened to go in. Finally.”
No. 1 FW/M (9-1) won its eighth straight in a 64-63 stunner over No. 3 Kindred (9-2) on Saturday in the Devils Lake Youth Activities Shootout.
The Indians had trailed by as many as 14. They outscored Kindred 20-7 in the fourth quarter to squeak out the win.
“That’s like three times this year we had that ‘don’t give up’ attitude,” FW/M head coach Rick Smith said. “Eight guys got to have a hand in a win, and I thought all eight guys did. Another great win. … Kindred’s one of the best. Their program proves it. And for us to come back against a team like that, for us to come back against a team like Central Cass, a team like Beulah, when we could be folding. Some of the things we did last year, we would fold.”
Indians fall into early hole, trail for most of the game
A day earlier, Smith said that a key would be limiting Kindred’s outside shooters.
For most of the game, the Indians didn’t exactly do that.
Kindred got out to leads of 8-0, 14-3 and 16-6. Sophomore Eli Maack, who led the Vikings with 22 points, scored nine in the first quarter. He hit two triples in the opening quarter and five in the game.
Kindred hit nine triples on the night — all in the first three quarters. Brooks Bakko added nine points in the first half.
“They were just making nothing but layups and threes on us,” Smith said. “They’re a good team. They’re going to make those shots. They’ve been doing it all year long. Their record proves it. They have all the faith in those shooters out there. And Bakko can pick you apart with his pass, and he finds his shooters. And they were just knocking it down. You’ve just got to keep plugging away.”
The Indians’ first six points came on and-ones from Tyler Black Jr. and Joran Lohnes.
Lohnes had eight points in the first quarter, but FW/M only got two field goals from its starters in that stretch. Kindred held a double-digit lead for much of the first half.
After failing to finish some early drives, Deng got going in the second quarter. He hit two three-pointers and scored 10 in the quarter, giving him 12 in the half. He cut Kindred’s lead as tight as six points.
But the Indians received very little scoring outside of Deng or Lohnes in the first half. They trailed 37-29 at halftime.
Perhaps most notably, neither Jonte Delorme or Sonny Alberts scored for FW/M in the half.
“Sonny had Bakko on him most of the time, so it was tough for Sonny to get his shot off,” Smith said. “Even tough to get Sonny in the blocks a little bit. Bakko’s strong, leaps every well.”
On the first play of the second half, the Indians drew up a play for Delorme. He missed a three-ball.
“Let’s get him a shot,” Smith said. “We’ve got to get him in rhythm, because he’s one of our leading scorers. And for him not to score for us kind of hurt us.”
Soon thereafter, Delorme got to the rim and hit a triple for his first points of the game. He ended up scoring nine in the second half.
But Maack continued to be a thorn in FW/M’s side. He hit three triples in the third quarter. Whipple and Gabriel Iverson each added a three-pointer.
Up 46-36, the Vikings finally saw a triple miss. FW/M tightened the gap to 46-40 after a put-back by Lohnes and an ultra-athletic layup by Deng.
Threes from Whipple and Maack quieted the Indians’ momentum.
Kindred grew its lead to 14 for the first time in the game. Going into the fourth quarter, FW/M still trailed by double digits, 56-44.
“They were just kind of doing what they wanted to do in our man. We couldn’t get our pressure that we wanted,” Smith said. “So we switched to that zone, put a full-court press. We’ve got nothing to lose; let’s see if we can rattle them a little bit. Let’s see if we can take them out of their offense.”
The comeback
The Indians didn’t necessarily ride an offensive outburst to erase the deficit. They snuck back into it quietly, coming up with stop after stop.
Alberts finally scored his first points of the game with 5:57 left. Kindred traveled on three consecutive possessions. Short-range shots from Deng and Lohnes finished a 9-0 run that cut Kindred’s lead to 58-55.
“We forced a lot of turnovers there in that one stretch, and I thought our pressure did that,” Smith said.
The Vikings, who’d been shooting threes willy-nilly, were suddenly pressing. They missed three consecutive free throws. They didn’t make a field goal for nearly the first six minutes of the fourth quarter.
Eventually, drives from Whipple and Jackson Schlieman made it a two-possession lead for Kindred.
Deng kept the Indians’ hopes alive with an and-one, getting fouled by Bakko and making the free throw. FW/M trailed 63-62 with 40.5 seconds left.
The Indians knew it was potentially their last possession. Delorme dribbled into the frontcourt, then passed to Keyson Littlewind, who handed it to Deng.
“Brooks is a great defender, and he wasn’t guarding me at the time; he was guarding our other big guy,” Deng said. “So I asked if I could get posted up. And then, yeah, I just got the ball and went to work.”
Deng took a few looks before finding his shot. As he fell back onto the floor, his ball falling through the hoop, the crowd of traveling Indians fans erupted.
There were no more stoppages. No timeouts. Kindred got back down the floor looking for one last hint of magic. Alberts blocked a three attempt by Schlieman in the corner, then intercepted Maack’s desperation pass to keep the ball in bounds.
Once Alberts held the ball, it was over.
The FW/M bench exploded.
“We started getting our teammates into it. We started getting our crowd into it,” Smith said. “Started rattling them a little bit. And we made some key baskets down the stretch.”
Deng led FW/M with 21 points. Lohnes had 18 off the bench. Black Jr., Delorme and Alberts all contributed offensively in the fourth quarter.
Bakko didn’t make any field goals in the second half. Kindred got just one deuce from its starters after halftime.
Deng credited Littlewind’s defensive energy in the fourth quarter.
“He basically won us that game,” Deng said, “by starting it off with the energy. We just kept on scoring and got back in the game.”
What’s next
The Indians have still only played one region game. Starting Jan. 30, they have a stretch of six consecutive region games in 14 days, worth a total of 11 points in the standings.
They’ll take a No. 1 ranking into those contests.
“We’re pretty confident right now, going into these region games,” Deng said. “We’ve got to take them serious so we can get a good seed in the regionals.”
Smith said that winning in the Devils Lake Sports Center, in particular, should help because most of their upcoming region games are on the road.
“So these type of games, when you can win on the road like this, it’s just going to help us when we have to go on the road for these region games,” Smith said. “Because those are not going to be easy. This is a good playoff atmosphere. A good road test against one of the best teams in the state. If you can come out with a win like we did tonight, we can build on that.”
The Indians travel to Thompson on Jan. 30 for a two-point game.
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