Cando native Dane Hagler had another solid game for the Royals on Sunday. (Photo by Mojo Hill)
DEVILS LAKE — The Lake Region State College men’s basketball team nearly pulled off an upset.
But the Royals men and women both fell on Sunday, getting swept by the perennially tough North Dakota State College of Science.
It was LRSC’s third-to-last regular-season slate at the Devils Lake Sports Center.
Women sunk by mid-game slump
A 14-0 Science run in the third quarter proved to make the difference for the women.
LRSC (13-10, 3-4) played much more evenly with second-place NDSCS (18-4, 5-2) in the first and fourth quarters of an eventual 78-64 loss.
“We’ve been a team that’s played two really good quarters all year, and then two not-so-great quarters,” Royals head coach Colden Hutton said. “We’ve got to be able to put four quarters together. Until we do that, we’re not going to be able to beat the really good teams.”
The Wildcats rode the duo of Lolo Carlow and Maggie Westling, who scored 27 and 21 points, respectively.
“Bottom line tonight, we were really bad defensively,” Hutton said. “Whether it was not being able to push Maggie outside the lane so we could double her, or whether it’s just not guarding the drive, even — we struggled defensively tonight.”
Hutton had mentioned stopping Westling as a key factor to potentially winning the game. Westling is averaging more than 20 a game and was recently named the National Player of the Week.
Westling scored 10 in the first quarter. She didn’t get many looks in the second or third quarter, but she added six points in the fourth to finish around her usual total. She made 10-of-14 field goals, all of the two-point variety.
But Carlow’s explosion was what really hurt the Royals. The Pine Ridge, S.D., native hit four triples in the second quarter and five overall. She shot 11-for-17 from the floor and 5-of-9 from three. She scored nearly double her season average.
“Lolo was really good. Our goal was to make sure everything was contested early, and it wasn’t,” Hutton said. “She got a couple open looks early, and she got hot. And that’s something that we’ve got to lock in better personnel-wise, going over screens, making sure everything’s tough, so she can’t get rolling. But she was rolling tonight, and when both her and Maggie are going, we struggle.”
Scoring from six Royals, including six from Sydney Schwabe, kept LRSC within one point after the first quarter, 18-17.
But the Royals made just two field goals in the second quarter — both threes off the bench by Torri Fee. Science outscored them 19-8 in the quarter.
Schwabe scored nine in the third quarter, but the rest of the Royals combined for just five points on two field goals.
Offense was hard to come by for LRSC in that middle stretch, and NDSCS grew its lead into the mid 20s.
“We’ve got to play together, when it comes down to it,” Hutton said. “Where we’re at our best is we’re moving that ball, we’re getting in multiple sides with the pass and then just making the extra passes.”
The Royals had a better fourth quarter. Leading scorer Zoie Austin, after just four points all game, scored eight, while Kiritiana Patea added seven off the bench and Lara Graham hit two triples.
It wasn’t enough as LRSC still fell by double digits.
“We’ve got to get back to the drawing board a little bit and figure out how we can be better defensively,” Hutton said.
The Royals dropped their second of two matchups with NDSCS on the season.
Their next two conference games are teams they’ve already beaten, with Dakota College at Bottineau and Miles Community College.
“We’re not going to beat them if we play like we did tonight,” Hutton said. “So we’ve got to come out, have a good day at practice on Tuesday and get ready to go for the Woodshed in Bottineau. Tough place to play — they’ve got a rowdy crowd — but we’ve got to come out ready to go. If we come out thinking that we’re going to win because we’ve beat them twice already, we’re probably not going to.”
Men hang around with the top dog
The LRSC men (10-15, 0-7), still winless in Mon-Dak play, competed with first-place NDSCS (21-3, 6-1), losing 95-89. It was a vast improvement from a 118-75 loss to the same team in early January.
“It just goes to show, when we put our minds to it and we want to play, we can play with anybody,” Royals head coach Jared Marshall said. “Our record doesn’t reflect how good we can be.”
The Wildcats came in leading the Mon-Dak in points per game with 96.7.
Yet, LRSC got out to a 34-23 lead.
“That’s some of our best basketball in the first 10 minutes,” Marshall said.
Akok Ajou scored 14 of the Royals’ first 24 points, including a pair of two-handed dunks. He scored 16 in the first half, then got into foul trouble in the second but still scored a team-high 28.
Dalen Leftbear and Dane Hagler added 11 and nine points, respectively, in the first half.
The Wildcats eventually took the lead with a 15-0 run late in the half. They featured a deep lineup of scorers, not to mention three players who measure in at 6-foot-11. NDSCS had 11 players score on the afternoon.
LRSC was still within four at halftime. The Royals outrebounded the Wildcats in the first half and were close on the boards for the game, 47-45.
“They’re one of the top rebounding teams in the nation,” Marshall said. “Our guards did a really nice job. [Ajou] did a great job. … Ashton [Munro] came in, gave us some big minutes and some great rebounding. … With that leak-out stuff we do, we were able to kind of put a little pressure on them and maybe get them second-guessing.”
NDSDCS led by as many as 12 in the second half. With Ajou back in, though, the Royals inched closer. Leftbear added eight in the half to finish second on the team with 19 points. Remy Davis Warrington, after nothing in the first half, scored 11 in the second.
“We just played with energy and effort. We kind of played fearless out there,” Marshall said. “And that’s what I like to see.”
Hagler had been quiet for most of the second half before an enormous and-one with 32 seconds left. It was a particularly untimely foul for the Wildcats, making it a one-possession game at 90-87.
“One of these days, we need all the guys that are playing to put it together all at the same time,” Marshall said. “Because, when we do that, we’re a tough team.”
LRSC didn’t have any more field goals left in it, getting only 2-of-2 free throws from Munro down the stretch. Free throw shooting was a little shaky for the Royals on Sunday, with just a 14-for-21 showing in a game they lost by six. NDSCS was 18-for-26 from the stripe.
The Wildcats’ Cham Okey scored 18 in the second half to finish with 29.
Jikany Deang and Nidas Paulauskas each added 16.
“At the end, we just didn’t get stops,” Marshall said. “And didn’t do our ball-screen coverage like we should have. Cham’s a hell of a player, and we just weren’t able to shut it down when we needed to.”
LRSC plays Dakota College at Bottineau on Wednesday, looking to avenge a buzzer-beater loss.
“The Shed’s a tough place to play. It’s always a battle. Weird stuff always happens up there,” Marshall said. “But I’m confident if we play like tonight, we’re going to be fine. Scoring’s not really ever been our issue; it’s can we get the stops and the rebounds when we need to get them? And the other thing I think is a difference that maybe not everybody notices: a lot of those 50-50 balls. Those balls that are bouncing around, that are on the floor, and we just didn’t come up with a couple of those tonight.”
