MAYVILLE — In the three games Four Winds/Minnewaukan has lost this season, head coach Rick Smith said his team had “first-quarter blues.”
They had those blues again on Thursday.
Yet, after going down 23-11 to open the game, No. 1 seed FW/M (21-3) clawed all the way back to beat No. 6 seed May-Port-C-G (10-14). The Indians squeaked out a 52-46 win to keep their season alive.
“We knew it was gonna be a tough game,” FW/M senior Marial Deng said. “So coming out here with a win, it’s just glad knowing you’re still alive and got a chance to make the main goal.”
The Indians trailed after each of the first three quarters.
They took the lead with six straight points from Deng to open the fourth.
“Keep climbing that hill,” Deng said. “Finally, we had a run to go on our end.”
Deng had made just one field goal in three quarters as FW/M trailed, 41-35. He scored 10 of his game-high 18 points in the fourth quarter.
He didn’t want this to be his last basketball game.
“That’s all I was thinking about,” Deng said. “I was like, ‘This can’t be our last game. We didn’t even make our main goal.’”
The Patriots were simply white-hot in the first quarter.
They went 9-for-10 from the field, including 5-for-5 from three. No single player got particularly hot; it was a cumulative effort from seven Patriots. They jumped out to a 12-point lead.
“I don’t know if we were playing bad defense, or they were just making everything,” FW/M head coach Rick Smith said. “It just seemed like every time we got an open look, it was going in.”
The Indians had their work cut out for them.
“We’ve got to weather their storm,” Smith said. “They’re making everything, and we’ve just got to clamp up a little tighter. They’ll start missing if our defense stays strong. We’ll tire their legs out.”
Jonte Delorme and Joran Lohnes each scored five in the second quarter as the Indians inched closer. Triples from Delorme and Sonny Alberts made the deficit as small as two.
May-Port still went into halftime with some energy after a put-back by Case Judisch. FW/M trailed by four while going 5-for-10 from the free throw line.
As the law of averages would foretell, the Patriots’ shooting cooled off. They went just 4-for-15 from the field in the second quarter, including 0-for-6 from three-point range.
Despite managing the May-Port offense, the Indians didn’t do themselves any favors. They made just two field goals in the third quarter: one from Delorme and one from Alberts. Deng didn’t score any points in the quarter. May-Port led by as many as nine, and by six going into the fourth.
“Every time we tried to climb back and get over the hump, we missed a free throw and missed a layup; they’d get a 50-50 ball,” Smith said. “We just grinded that one out.”
FW/M outscored May-Port 17-6 in the fourth quarter to get the job done.
Three straight Deng shots — including a breakaway and-one — tied it at 41-41. Alberts put the Indians in the lead.
May-Port fought back with layups from Jayd Larson and Samuel Weaver. But it was Deng, again, who gave the Indians their final lead by getting down low.
“That’s Marial,” Smith said. “He’s starting to be a vocal leader as well in the huddle, and getting on guys — which you want from your seniors.”
Lohnes hit a massive shot to make it a three-point game. Once May-Port’s Noah Djibonon missed a potential game-tying triple, the Patriots were left grasping for answers.
“Even though you can’t breathe a little easier, it just felt a little better once you got that little one-point, two-point lead,” Smith said. “It felt better than just digging from behind the whole damn game.”
Delorme added 4-of-5 free throws in the second half to help secure the win. He finished with 13 points.
Deng made his final two free throws to put the game out of reach.
May-Port made just two field goals in the fourth quarter.
“They scored 23 points in the first quarter; 23 the rest of the game was just a fantastic second quarter on, defensively,” Smith said.
Deng was named Region 2 Senior Athlete of the Year alongside Grafton’s Brody Lillemoen. Deng, Delorme and Alberts were all-region selections. Smith was named the Region 2 Coach of the Year.
The Indians now move on to play Oak Grove, the loser of the Region 1 championship. The game will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday at SCHEELS Center in the Sanford Health Athletic Complex.
It’ll be a rematch of FW/M’s first game of the season, which the Indians won, 84-54.
Oak Grove is no slouch, though.
“They didn’t get the two seed on a fluke,” Smith said. “After our game, they’ve been playing extremely well. And you’re going down to their territory where they just got done playing three games, and we’ve got to go down there in a gym that we haven’t played in since last year. Another new atmosphere. It’s going to be their crowd, a Fargo crowd. … They’ve just got to understand that it’s do-or-die. And they’ve got to leave it out on the floor again.”
After their season was eight minutes away from ending, the Indians have new life.
“This game is just over with,” Deng said. “We’re never gonna look at this game again. We’re just gonna focus on Oak Grove. … That’s our main goal.”
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