Aubrey Kenner surpassed the Benson County scoring record of 1,847 points during the Wildcats’ semifinal victory over St. John on Saturday in Maddock.
The District 4 girls’ basketball district championship will be a rematch of last year’s region championship.
Benson County and Langdon Area/Munich each handled business in the District 4 semifinals in Maddock on Saturday. They will meet again on Monday.
But first, North Star stayed alive in the elimination bracket with an overtime win over New Rockford-Sheyenne. The No. 6-seeded Bearcats (9-11) won 51-44 over the No. 7-seeded Rockets (4-17) to begin Saturday’s slate.
NR-S, a day after playing a close game against No. 2 seed LA/M, led 24-19 at halftime against North Star. Ava Peterson led the Rockets with 17 points. Kaci Weisenburger and Kensley Engels each scored nine.
Claire Weber was North Star’s leading scorer with 19 points. The Bearcats worked back to tie it at 29-29 entering the fourth quarter.
North Star grabbed a slight lead down the stretch of regulation. But Weber uncharacteristically missed two free throws, and with 10 seconds left, the Rockets’ Emmie Belquist tied it with a three-pointer.
The shot accounted for three of Belquist’s five points on the afternoon.
So it went to overtime, tied at 41-41. There were fouls and free throws galore for both teams — a total of seven players fouled out, four for NR-S and three for North Star.
The Rockets ran out of gas, with Peterson and Belquist being among those who fouled out. North Star outscored them 13-3 in overtime. Weber had four of her points in the overtime period.
Blake Nicholas and Annabelle Staus supported Weber’s 19 points with 12 and 10 points, respectively. Genevieve Ahlberg was the Bearcats’ leading rebounder with eight.
The Rockets’ season came to an end despite playing two valiant battles in the district tournament. The Bearcats advanced to a region qualifier game on Monday.
With Warwick dropping out before the tournament, Nelson County got the day off.
So, the semifinals followed directly after the overtime thriller.
Defending state champion Benson County (18-2) played its first game of the postseason after receiving a first-round bye. The No. 1-seeded Wildcats beat No. 4 seed St. John (9-11), 51-42.
It was a tougher game for Benson County than its 68-47 victory over St. John in the regular season. The Wildcats actually trailed at halftime, 24-22. They led 38-37 after three quarters, then locked down the win with a 13-5 fourth quarter.
Senior Aubrey Kenner had 14 points for the Wildcats. The University of Mary commit, who surpassed 1,000 points early in her junior season, became Benson County’s all-time leading scorer with 1,847 points.
Lacie Fautsch also had 14, while Addisyn Faul had 12 and Kaitlyn Maddock had 11.
Benson County, which won last year’s district championship, will return to the game on Monday — this time on its home court in Maddock.
In the final game on Saturday, LA/M (15-6) won 55-40 over No. 3 seed North Prairie (11-10).
Freshman Hilary Haaven led the Cardinals with 22 points.
LA/M led 30-27 at the half, then outscored North Prairie 25-13 in the second to punch its ticket to the district championship.
Monday’s action will begin at 4 p.m. North Star will battle St. John in a region qualifier; then Nelson County will take on North Prairie in the other region qualifier.
The championship game will follow between the top two seeds in the district. The loser of the championship game will still make it to the region tournament, but the game still matters for seeding and bragging rights of being the district champion.
The four region qualifiers will compete with the top four teams in District 3 in the Region 2 tournament in Larimore from Feb. 23-26.
