MAYVILLE — Two years ago, in the first season of the three-class system, Devils Lake played Four Winds/Minnewaukan in the region semifinals.
It’s a game the Indians’ Marial Deng, now a senior, still remembers.
“It was a great game,” Deng said. “They came out ready, and then they just took over on us.”
Devils Lake won that contest, 68-58. The Firebirds went on to win their first state championship in 99 years. The Indians met an unlucky draw and didn’t make it out of the region tournament.
Devils Lake and FW/M each won their first-round matchup at Mayville State University on Monday. So, two years later, the Firebirds and Indians will meet again — in the same round, on the same floor, with the same stakes.
“It’s going to be a great crowd,” Deng said. “A game every kid wants to play in.”
The Firebirds came into this tournament with the No. 4 seed. The Indians are seeded No. 1.
Devils Lake has won four of the teams’ seven matchups against each other over the last three seasons.
FW/M, however, has taken the last two.
The first one was on Jan. 5, when Devils Lake’s Mason and Max Palmer were out. The Indians exploded offensively and won 86-61.
The Palmers returned on Feb. 10, but FW/M still won, 60-46.
“We’ve got to play better defense,” Devils Lake head coach Dustin Brodina said. “If we give up 60 points, 65 points, we’re going to lose. So we’ve got to keep them in check on the defensive end. Keep them in front. Hopefully keep them from knocking down a bunch of threes.”
The Palmers were held in check in that game. Max Palmer scored 11 points, while Mason had seven.
“We didn’t play very well,” Max said. “So I’m anticipating a really good game coming up tomorrow. But we’ve just got to play our game. Shots didn’t fall last time, but they’ll fall this time.”
Since that game, the Palmers have been raining buckets.
Devils Lake enters Tuesday’s game with a five-game winning streak. Mason is averaging 26 points in that stretch. Max hasn’t been far behind. He led the Firebirds with 18 in their quarterfinal win over Thompson.
“To get their team chemistry going again, that’s not an easy thing to do for any team,” FW/M head coach Rick Smith said. “You lose a kid to injury, and then you stick them back in the lineup, and team chemistry is not where you want it to be. And it just took them a little while to get going. And now it seems like they’ve been putting it in fourth gear, and they’re winning their games against some really, really good quality teams.”
Deng scored a game-high 19 points in the Indians’ latest win over Devils Lake.
“The Palmers came back. They weren’t in game shape, but now they’re probably in game shape,” he said. “So it’ll be a very tough game tomorrow.”
With the Palmers heating up since then — and everything else naturally shifting into place — Brodina expects a bigger showing from them.
“I hope they bring a lot more offensively,” Brodina said. “And I think they will. But we’ve also got to make sure that we’re team oriented, and that if we move the ball and we’re disciplined, I think it’s hard for teams to guard us and beat us.”
In the Firebirds’ recent loss, they settled for three and didn’t get many open looks for the Palmers.
It didn’t help that the shots weren’t landing.
Brodina emphasized that his team needs to make the Indians play defense.
“That’s one of our biggest goals, is to make them play defense tomorrow instead of shooting it up quick and bailing them out so they don’t have to work on the other end,” Brodina said. “And if we can make them work on both ends and keep it close, maybe we can come out with a win.”
Devils Lake (15-7) is looking for its third consecutive region championship. The Indians (20-2) are trying to become the first team to get a win over the Firebirds in a Division A region tournament.
“We expect all their ammunition tomorrow,” Smith said. “We expect them to shoot way better tomorrow. And a big thing about that is we just can’t give up second and third chances, because they just live off that.”
The game is set for 5:30 p.m. at Mayville State University on Tuesday.
The winner advances to Thursday’s region championship game, while the loser will move to the third-place game. The other semifinal Tuesday is a matchup between No. 2 seed Grafton and No. 6 seed May-Port-C-G.
Leave a Reply