Tuesday night’s game brought the two best high school basketball teams in the Lake Region to Devils Lake, and the contest didn’t disappoint — nor did the fans.
The Devils Lake High School parking lot was already full at the start of the JV game beforehand, and nearly every seat in the gym was occupied. They had to open the second deck of bleachers on the away side of the court just to fit everyone. The crowd included a packed student section doing organized cheers and plenty of fans who made the trip from Fort Totten.
“It was definitely a state championship type atmosphere out there tonight,” Devils Lake head coach Dustin Brodina said.
And it was a state championship type game, with two teams who have a very strong chance of making it to the mid-March tournament in Fargo. In a back-and-forth thriller featuring some of the best basketball players in North Dakota, the No. 2 Firebirds (15-1, 5-1) were able to edge out the No. 3 Indians (12-4, 5-2) by a marginal score of 70-69.
“Just stick to the game plan. Don’t get caught up in what the crowd’s doing, what they’re yelling,” Brodina said. “Understand what we’re doing both offensively and defensively. And that can be a challenge at times.”
Wylee Delorme got Devils Lake going with a three, but the rest of the first quarter belonged to FW/M. Deng Deng, the heart and soul of the Indians, got them on the board with a pair of free throws, and Wade Nestell tied it at 7-7 with a three-pointer.
Though the Firebirds looked fairly crisp out of the gate and didn’t display too many early-game jitters, they turned the ball over in two successive possessions to fall into a seven-point hole. Beau Brodina had the ball stolen from him, which led to one of Deng’s signature dunks. Dalen Leftbear nabbed another steal for FW/M, then made his way down the court and poked in the layup.
It was a 10-0 run for the Indians, giving them a 14-7 lead.
“I think we got caught up in their defense,” Brodina said. “We weren’t able to get into any of our executions on offense. They were doubling the basketball, got us hurried up a little bit, got some turnovers and got the excitement going.”
Parker Brodina ended the streak, and the Firebirds kept it close for the rest of the first quarter. Mason Palmer contributed a basket, while Joel Nelson had six points in the quarter. The Indians led 19-15.
Deng began the second quarter with a dunk after the ball was stolen from Delorme, but B. Brodina responded with a quick run down the court and a layup. The Firebirds clawed back to tie it up, as Nelson made another shot and P. Brodina muscled a layup with a guard on him. Brodina, who led Devils Lake’s scoring with 18 points, had a slew of athletic layups throughout the night, favoring that style of play over going for bigger shots.
“I was trying to get to the rim because they got a few fouls on them,” he said. “I was just trying to get the offense going with drive-and-kick. But I ended up finishing at the rim.”
The Indians went right back ahead with a three by Dorvan McKay. Delorme attempted to counter with a three, but he missed it, and Nelson got the rebound but couldn’t quite tip it in. With four minutes to go in the first half, Devils Lake still trailed.
After the teams went back and forth, Oliver Wirth seemingly came out of nowhere for Devils Lake and hit a go-ahead three. That’s the thing about this Firebirds team: they get contributions from so many different players, and somebody always seems to step up when they need it most.
“Everyone can score the ball that’s on the court at all times,” P. Brodina said. “It’s good when all the shots go down.”
The teams were tied at 28-28 and 30-30, but Deng once again had to remind Devils Lake of his presence. He swished a three at the buzzer of the first half, giving the Indians a 33-30 lead at halftime. He was held to a relatively modest 12 points in the first half and 24 overall, after he scored 77 in his previous two games.
“We worked a lot on defensive stuff, strategies to try to stop him,” D. Brodina said. “Especially when he gets downhill, try to double him a little bit. And it worked somewhat. He hit a lot more threes than I would like, but he’s a fantastic player. He’s one of the best players in the state. So you really can’t stop him; you just try to contain him a little bit.”
The Firebirds retook the lead very quickly in the second half, getting baskets from Nelson and P. Brodina to go up 34-33. But the Indians fought right back, going ahead once again on a shot by Marial Deng, followed by a deep three from D. Deng to make it a four-point game.
Even with Deng’s flashiness putting a constant thorn in Devils Lake’s side, the Firebirds continued to play their game: small ball, finding any way they can to dribble inside the paint and get to the rim. P. Brodina had a basket and a free throw that got them within one, and Nelson gave Devils Lake the lead back at 43-42.
“We missed some shots early in the game,” D. Brodina said, “and we always try to dribble-drive; if they’re gonna give it to us, if they’re gonna double-team, we’re gonna kick it and get it to the open guy and hit the shot. That’s kind of been our MO all the time.”
Deng missed a layup, but recovered the rebound and put FW/M back up by one. With Devils Lake down 46-45, Palmer swished a go-ahead three. The 5-foot-11 sophomore is fairly low on the Firebirds’ depth chart, but he’s shown a prowess for shooting nearly every time he’s gotten a chance to play. Here he was, at the varsity level on the biggest stage, making a key shot for the Firebirds down the final stretch of the third quarter.
“He’d be starting on 95% of teams in the state,” Brodina said. “It’s just that we’ve got some athletes ahead of him. But Mason’s a great player. He comes in and he’s playing hard. He understands his role: come in, play defense, get downhill with the ball on offense and hit that open shot when it’s there.”
Delorme got back in the scoring column after a quiet second quarter, and Wirth literally and figuratively slammed the final points down for Devils Lake in the third quarter. The Firebirds led 53-49, the taste of triumph on the tips of their tongues.
After playing such a scrappy, athletic game up to this point, Devils Lake let some bigger shots rip in the fourth quarter. Its first four shots came of the three-point variety, beginning and ending with one by Drew Hofstad, who also made a three back in the third quarter.
“I drove in, and they kicked out,” Hofstad said. “It was pretty open, so I just had to knock it down.”
Delorme made his second three of the game in that stretch, while P. Brodina had his first. Brodina was a prime example of Devils Lake’s signature style all game, but even he had to join the party and help solidify this win.
“It opens up a lot of stuff when you can start hitting threes. And that was a big one,” P. Brodina said. “Drew hit some big shots, and I had that big three, and that propelled us ahead of them.”
The Firebirds led 65-58 after Hofstad’s final three — a seven-point margin that felt massive given how tight this game had been.
But of course, it still wasn’t over.
“You can’t get a false sense of security, especially playing a team like Four Winds,” D. Brodina said.
Leftbear and Nestell put up back-to-back quick shots for FW/M, bringing it back to a three-point game. But P. Brodina put up another shot, and Nelson, Palmer and B. Brodina each had a free throw.
Devils Lake led 70-66 with 12.3 seconds left. The Indians were fouling the Firebirds in a desperate attempt to stay in the game, and it nearly worked. Leftbear made a three on the final play of the game, but the Indians simply ran out of seconds on the clock to work with. This game was about which team happened to be leading at the end of 32 minutes; given another quarter, it’s hard to say definitively if the result would have been the same.
In any case, despite the margin narrowing to just one measly point, it was a win for the Firebirds, who took their 12th straight and kept the magic alive.
“This is a huge win,” Brodina said. “This is the toughest region in the state. If we can squeeze out that No. 1 seed, that’s huge because that puts you on the back side of the bracket. And it’s gonna be tough to make it to state just coming out of our region. We’ve got some really, really good teams all the way from top to bottom… This puts us in the driver’s seat, and hopefully we can capitalize on it.”
First-place Devils Lake’s next game is next Tuesday on the road against another tough opponent: No. 4 Grafton. The Firebirds had a similarly intense thriller against the Spoilers last time they played them, winning 68-66 on a buzzer-beating layup by P. Brodina.
Joseph “Mojo” Hill is a reporter covering Lake Region sports for the Devils Lake Journal. Contact him on Twitter @mojohill22 or at jhill@devilslakejournal.com for any tips, questions or story ideas.
