Langdon Area/Munich’s Levi Swanson matches up with New Rockford-Sheyenne’s Thomas Allmaras during the District 4 semifinals at Langdon Area High School. (Photo by Mojo Hill)
LANGDON — For the first time this season, the Langdon Area/Munich boys’ basketball team has won two games in a row.
The district tournament was a good time to achieve that feat.
“We’ve kind of had an odd season,” LA/M head coach Tanner Groth said. “We win one, we lose one — we’re kind of all over the place. I feel like we played a really tough schedule to put us in a position to win these games, and it’s kind of showing off tonight.”
The Cardinals have only lost two games in a row once. With Monday’s district semifinal win, they improved to 11-10.
LA/M, the No. 3 seed in the District 4 tournament, beat No. 2 seed and defending district champion New Rockford-Sheyenne (17-4) by a 64-55 score at Langdon Area High School.
“It feels great,” said Cardinals guard Eastyn Schaefer, who scored a game-high 30 points. “We haven’t been to the district championship in a long time. We haven’t beat that team in a long time. They’re really good, and it felt great to just come out, dominate on the boards — everywhere, every aspect of the game.”
Primed with the biggest student section of any team — led by three students dressed as ESPN analysts — the Cardinals made their home fans happy.
“It’s what you’re working towards all season,” Groth said. “You kind of have the advantage of playing the district tourney in your own gym, so you’ve got a nice home-court advantage. It’s nice to have a spot in the regional tourney and the district championship game, for sure.”
The Rockets, who beat LA/M 50-42 during the regular season, led 18-8 to open the game.
Thomas Allmaras hit two early triples, and four on the night. He, Easton Simon, Shaun Reimche and Koy Zieman combined for those initial 18 points.
Layton Jacobson got to the rim a couple times in the second quarter to join the party.
“We really stressed keeping them off the offensive glass. It felt like they abused us inside early in that game, where they were getting every offensive rebound, and then it was creating an offensive bucket for them,” Groth said.
Fueled by 14 points in the first half from Schaefer, the Cardinals trimmed the deficit to 33-30 by halftime.
And then they really got going in the third quarter.
“We emphasized defensive rebounding,” Schaefer said. “They got a lot of second-chance opportunities, and we needed to limit those. And we did that in the second half.”
Schaefer, Levi Swanson and Maddux Stremick each hit a triple. LA/M also slowed down the Rockets’ non-Simon options.
Until there were about 39 seconds left in the third quarter, no NR-S player besides Simon scored in the period.
“They ran the floor on us more than I would have liked to see in the first half, and that was their rhythm of getting out and going. And we just weren’t sprinting back, and they beat us down the court,” Groth said. “But we adjusted it in the second half and kind of took that away from them.”
The Cardinals outscored the Rockets 19-10 in the third quarter to take a 49-43 lead.
Schaefer added nine points to his line in the fourth after already reaching 21 through three quarters. His performance included 7-of-8 free throw shooting.
“I was kind of feeling my game,” Schaefer said. “Big credit to my teammates. They were creating for me. I was creating for them. Whenever I’d get doubled, they’d go to the hoop and we’d get a layup. It was a team effort.”
Despite only being a sophomore, Schaefer is someone who’s shown Groth big things for years already.
“He’s a guy that we’ve leaned on, realistically, since he was an eighth-grader,” Groth said. “And he kind of stepped up tonight when we needed a bucket and things started to get helter-skelter. He definitely found a way to keep us ahead and keep pushing away.”
Reimche hit a three for the Rockets in the fourth quarter, which got the lead down to four.
But Schaefer and Swanson each got down low towards the end. LA/M outlasted them.
Simon finished with 23 points to lead NR-S.
Now, the Cardinals move to Tuesday’s district championship against No. 1 seed St. John. They lost 59-56 in their previous meeting with the Woodchucks.
“We haven’t won the district tournament in like four or five years, and we’re going to come out and try to do that tomorrow,” Schaefer said. “We lost to [the Woodchucks] earlier in the year; I think we can get them on our home court.”
Regardless of Tuesday’s result, LA/M will be somewhere in the region tournament.
“That’s your ultimate goal, is to be able to play down in Devils Lake in that region tourney,” Groth said. “But now to be able to go compete for a district championship, that’s what we want to do and go get.”
NR-S will fight for its season in a region qualifier against North Star on Tuesday — the first of three games, starting at 4 p.m. The Rockets took the regular-season matchup 59-47.
