LANGDON — So much for No. 1 North Star boys’ basketball has come easily.
But on Monday, the Bearcats had their guts tested. Playing in the semifinal of the District 3 tournament, they trailed by 11 in the first quarter and had to claw their way back in. North Star (20-1, 11-0, 8-0) and Langdon Area/Edmore/Munich (11-10, 110-6, 5-4) went down to the wire, but it was the Bearcats who pulled away at the end to win 61-54 and advance to the District 3 championship.
“Those are good games to be in, especially down the stretch,” head coach Jesse Vote said. “Can we be resilient enough to weather the storm and find a way to dig deep on defense and get a stop?”
With an off-night from the Simon brothers, who have been such a critical part of this team, North Star got a boost from the Hagler brothers. Dane led the team with 27 points, while Hunter put up 16. Dane, a four-sport senior, typically forms a three-headed monster with the Simon twins — but on Monday, it was his younger brother who stepped up to help them squeeze out the victory.
“He probably had the game of his life there,” Dane said. “That was huge for us. I don’t think we win that game if he doesn’t play like that.”
After winning the tip-off, North Star tried to go big but missed multiple early three-point attempts. Perhaps the Bearcats were still riding the high of Friday’s win, or they weren’t expecting the Cardinals to bring such a determined effort to Monday’s matchup. But they looked off at the beginning.
“We couldn’t find a bucket,” Vote said. “We probably pulled the trigger a little bit too quick on some three-pointers.”
Langdon scored 10 straight points to go ahead 10-3 — bookended by threes from Eastyn Schaefer and Rayce Worley. The Cardinals’ student section, dressed in a theme of army camouflage, roared with every shot that landed for Langdon. At one point, with their team holding a commanding lead over North Star, they even began chanting “Overrated!”
“We know to keep our composure,” D. Hagler said. “We’ll let the scoreboard do the talking after the game.”
H. Hagler got North Star back in the points column, but Levi Swanson had a three-point play for Langdon. After a put-back by Nicholas Kingzett to make it 15-5, Vote shouted “You gotta play defense!” at Parker Simon while he made his way to the bench.
D. Hagler battled at the rim to make a layup for North Star, and then he exchanged threes with the Cardinals. Langdon capped the first quarter with its fourth three of the game, this time by Jayden Lee, putting the Bearcats in a stunningly large 23-12 hole. Hagler missed another three-point attempt of his own at the buzzer.
This, remember, is a North Star team that didn’t lose a game in region or district play all season.
“It was just the emotion and energy that they set off in their crowd. Their atmosphere, their home gym, maybe played a little part into that,” Vote said. “We didn’t do the things that we worked on in practice very well. We knew what they were gonna run; we didn’t get things taken away like we needed to, and they hit some shots. So credit to them, and they fed off that energy.”
D. Hagler opened the second quarter with a steal and a two-handed dunk. He scored the first seven points of the quarter, trimming the deficit to 23-19.
Langdon recaptured some of that momentum, making three layups in a row to go back up 29-19. But the Bearcats hung in there. After grinding it back to 29-23, North Star got a steal and a run down the court from Garrett Westlind, who put in the layup.
Suddenly, the Cardinals were missing some of the flashy threes and athletic layups that had put them ahead in the first place. Both teams buckled down on defense, and nearly four minutes of gameplay went by without a point being scored on either side — Langdon leading 29-25.
In the final minute of the first half, D. Hagler made a pair of free throws, and H. Hagler swished a game-tying basket. After an ugly first quarter and a tight second quarter, it was all knotted up at 29 apiece.
“It’s 0-0,” Vote said. “We have full faith in our guys. We’ve got guys that are capable of shooting lights-out. We just had to figure out what was gonna work for us.”
The game stayed even for most of the second half, with Langdon refusing to let North Star run away. The Cardinals weren’t shooting quite like they did in the first quarter, but they were still pesky on defense and made it tough for the Bearcats to hold onto the ball.
D. Hagler had his second steal and two-handed dunk to put North Star up 34-33, but the teams continued to go back and forth. H. Hagler tied it at 36 with a layup, and the teams exchanged threes to stay tied at 39. North Star finally got two consecutive baskets to go up by multiple possessions, but in fitting fashion, Langdon responded with back-to-back baskets of its own.
At the end of three quarters, the Cardinals led 44-43.
Hunter had the Bearcats’ first five points of the fourth quarter, while Dane had the next four, helping North Star counter Langdon’s resilient offensive attack. After falling behind 50-48, Dane’s back-to-back shots put the Bearcats up 52-50.
“He’s our leader, and they feed off of him,” Vote said of Dane. “And he knows when it’s time to go, it’s time to go. I thought he did a really good job controlling the offense.”
H. Hagler got blocked trying to jump to the rim, and Langdon was able to get back down the court and tie it. D. Hagler missed a three, but his brother got the rebound, put it back in the bucket and got fouled. It was a three-point play for Hunter, whose eight fourth-quarter points were instrumental in getting North Star to the finish line in one piece.
“I told the kids in the locker room after the game: We probably don’t win that game if Hunter doesn’t show up,” Vote said, echoing Dane’s praise of his younger brother. “He outperformed probably everybody on the court in both aspects, offense and defense… He’s come back from a leg injury, and I would say after tonight he’s dang close to back to 100%.”
The Cardinals made a basket that cut the lead to 55-54, but it turned out to be their last points of the night. Dane had the final six points for North Star, four via free throws. Langdon airballed a three-point attempt, throwing up a desperation move after it had played such a composed game overall. The Bearcats were the better team in the end despite the Cardinals giving everything they had.
“With the crowd and the atmosphere, we’ve probably got everybody cheering against us — which is fine,” Vote said. “We gotta learn to play with that, with a target on our back. Fortunately, we were able to make some plays down the stretch and close the game out.”
North Star scored 18 points in the fourth quarter — all 18 came from somebody with the last name Hagler. Usually, a stat like that could be said about the Simon brothers. But Parker and Karsen only scored one basket each.
“Maybe putting too much pressure on themselves,” Vote said. “But they’re competitors. Hopefully they can make the plays when we need them to make the plays. And that’s just it; we have guys that can step up when others don’t. And that could be a completely different story tomorrow night. It could be two other guys that step up. And we’ve seen that all year long.”
North Star will now battle No. 3-seeded Midway/Minto for the District 3 title on Tuesday at approximately 7 p.m.
