There’s a reason they play the games, and a reason they go until the end no matter what.
It hasn’t been the season Jared Marshall hoped for his squad, but the Royals have continued to fight through every game. They finally saw some of that perseverance rewarded on Wednesday. Lake Region State College (9-20, 5-15) battled through a grueling, back-and-forth second half to come back and defeat second-place Dawson Community College (23-6, 16-4) by a score of 73-68 at Devils Lake Sports Center.
“It sure would have been real easy for them to just pack it in a long time ago,” Marshall said. “A lot of teams would have done that, and these guys haven’t. It just goes to show how tough they are and how hard they want to work to be successful.”
LRSC turned the ball over 28 times and only had 10 offensive rebounds, but Noah Bonick, Ginuwine Tropnas and Blessed Barhayiga all had point totals in double digits. It sent the team’s sophomores home with a win in what will likely be their last games in Devils Lake, barring the Royals hosting a home playoff game.
“I’m happy for our sophomores that they leave here with a win,” Marshall said, “and just overall for our momentum heading into the playoffs.”
In the first half, the Buccaneers were finding ways to sneak around the rim. The Royals were attempting a similar style but had a tougher time executing those plays, struggling to get around a physical Dawson team.
“What makes them tough is their press,” Marshall said. “It just wears you down.”
Tropnas had the first basket of the game, but the Buccaneers followed with an 8-0 run. Rihards Porietis ended the stretch.
Mat Mudingay made a shot while bouncing off a defender, and Barhayiga had a three-point play that got the Royals within 14-9. But three-pointers haunted them. Dawson had a stretch where four consecutive baskets were of the three-point variety — two from Kur Maler, one from Jordan Jasper and one from Demetric Kindle.
Mitch Leas made a three of his own in that span, but LRSC still found itself in a 23-12 hole.
The Royals clawed back to keep the deficit relatively close. Barhayiga made a basket and two free throws, and Porietis won a battle at the rim. Bonick also took a nice route for a layup. It was an 8-0 run of LRSC’s own, trimming the gap from 27-16 to 27-24.
Roniel Oguekwe made five straight points for Dawson, and nine in an 11-point stretch. The Buccaneers used a 10-0 run to stretch the lead back out to 14 at 40-26. At the half, LRSC trailed 42-31.
In the opening minutes of the second half, Dawson’s Levi O’Brien exchanged threes with Mudingay. Tropnas then swished a three of his own.
A technical foul was called on Dawson, and Barhayiga made both free throws. Buccaneers head coach Joe Peterson bickered about the call to the ref, who shot back at him, “Shut up, or I’ll throw you out!”
The Royals continued to claw back with a three-point play by Noah Bonick. Isaac Warhurst found his way to the rim for a layup, and LRSC trailed by just one, 51-50. Barhayiga then managed to tip one in, and the Royals took a 52-51 lead.
“We just kind of kept coming. We never rolled over, and we never quit,” Marshall said. “And I think they kept thinking we were gonna do that.”
A basket briefly put Dawson back ahead, but LRSC then rattled off a 6-0 run with four free throws to go up 58-53.
The Buccaneers made three free throws of their own, and a Jasper shot tied it back up. But Bonick put the Royals ahead 60-58 before a timeout with 6:14 left to play.
Porietis snuck one in to make it 62-60, and Warhurst’s second basket of the game made it 64-61. Dawson wasn’t getting to the rim as smoothly as it had been earlier, and it was missing its three-point attempts. At another brief timeout to take a breath, LRSC was 3:45 away from victory.
Warhurst made two free throws during a stretch when every point mattered. With less than three minutes to go, the Royals led by four. Nearly every play saw a hectic battle for the ball at the rim, with neither team wanting to concede any open baskets. The Buccaneers were getting offensive rebounds but struggling to take advantage of them.
Tropnas shot two free throws that made it a six-point margin at the two-minute mark.
But then Dawson remembered how to make a three-pointer.
Seth Amunrud and Ty Buckmon each made a three, tying the game at 68 apiece. The Royals immediately responded, as Tropnas got to the rim and made a shot while getting fouled. It was a three-point play to get LRSC back on top.
“That’s something we’ve done before; we’ve unraveled,” Marshall said. “And tonight, credit to them, we didn’t.”
The Royals had a chance to make it a two-possession game with 34.4 seconds left, but Mudingay missed both his free throw attempts.
LRSC managed a block on the next play, and Warhurst was fouled with 3.4 seconds to go. He made both free throws. The inbound pass was intercepted, and it was a two-possession game at that point anyway. The players from the women’s team, who had stayed to watch, crowded around Marshall while jumping and cheering, and the players on the men’s team were even more ecstatic.
The Royals could smell the sweet scent of victory. After all they’ve been through this year — all the losses, all the insufficient comeback attempts, all the frustration — they finished their home schedule on a positive note, and against the second-best team in the conference, no less. The ups and downs were worth it for them to get to this moment, and valuable for whatever lies beyond the Lake Region.
“I think the thing that I want them to take away is how much I care about them,” Marshall said. “I might be really hard on them, and I might expect a lot out of them. But the whole thing is to make them successful not just here, but in life moving forward… My hope is they move on and they go to four-year schools and get those opportunities, and they become better players and better men.”
