Today’s the day: The Devils Lake boys’ basketball team will head to the state tournament in Fargo.
The Firebirds begin play on Thursday at the Fargodome, looking to replicate the magical run the girls’ team pulled off. It’ll be a similarly tough, but equally achievable, path to glory if Devils Lake wants to be crowned a champion.
Devils Lake enters the tournament as the No. 2 seed after winning the Region 2 tournament. The Firebirds were only the No. 3 seed in a competitive region, but they defeated Four Winds/Minnewaukan in the semifinals and Thompson in the final to earn an automatic bid to state. They had the best regular season record in Region 2 and will be representing the region as its highest seed.
The first opponent for Devils Lake is No. 7-seeded Valley City at 1 p.m. Thursday. The Firebirds beat the Hi-Liners 66-38 during the regular season. Valley City is 13-11 and went 6-6 in regular season region games. Like Devils Lake, it was the No. 3 seed in its region tournament — out of seven teams instead of six, though. The Hi-Liners beat Lisbon 70-66, then lost to No. 2-seeded Wahpeton 47-44. They beat Central Cass in the third-place game to advance to a state qualifier, then beat Thompson — a familiar foe of Devils Lake — to earn a trip to state.
The Hi-Liners were led by Zach Sykora and Carson Eggert in their defeat of Thompson. It’s easy to look at Devils Lake’s previous score against Valley City and assume it’ll win again — and sure, it is the favored team by a fairly wide margin. But the Hi-Liners beat a Tommies team that led at halftime during each of their last two games against the Firebirds, and beat No. 2 Grafton in the region tournament. Thompson might have been unranked, but it was playing like one of the best teams in the state over the last few weeks. So beating Thompson was no small feat, and Devils Lake should expect a similar fight.
A win against Valley City would advance Devils Lake to a likely rematch with No. 3-seeded Grafton, assuming the Spoilers beat No. 5 (No. 6-seeded) Beulah. The Firebirds won one of the most exciting and competitive games played in Lake Region sports this season against Grafton on Jan. 11. As a quick refresher, that was the game where Parker Brodina missed two free throws with the game tied, but Drew Hofstad nabbed a steal and got it back to Brodina, who made the game-winning layup at the buzzer.
The Spoilers got their revenge, though, in Grafton on Feb. 13. Devils Lake ran into foul trouble and played a sluggish fourth quarter after trailing by one point at the end of the third.
Grafton plays a similar style as Devils Lake, with an array of shooters who can handle the ball and a lot of different moves that the team can pull off to score. The squads often battled each other for the higher spot in the polls during the regular season, and perhaps this potential rematch will finally settle which of them is actually the better team.
Things could get even more interesting in the final, when Devils Lake would likely match up against No. 1 Kindred if it were to get that far. Kindred has not lost a single game all season. Kindred also notably, however, has not had to play Devils Lake this season. The Vikings narrowly beat Grafton and FW/M — 74-68 and 48-45, respectively. The Indians came closest to beating them, leading for the first three quarters until Kindred took off in the fourth.
The point is that Kindred is beatable, despite the daunting undefeated record. It competed with teams that Devils Lake competed with, so there’s no reason to expect a potential matchup between them to be any different. And speaking of undefeated teams, just look at what happened to Thompson in the girls’ tournament.
Anything can happen in these tournaments; a lot of it is about which teams have the hot hand. It would be tempting to say Devils Lake has the hot hand, although it’s really been “hot” all season and hasn’t had a cold stretch. The Firebirds lost an early-season game to FW/M, and later had their 13-game winning streak ended by Grafton. That’s it. Those are the only games they’ve lost.
Like in the girls’ tournament, the Firebirds will have a chance to compete for a final placing in consolation games even if they take an early exit. A loss to Grafton in the semifinal, for example, would put them in the third-place game.
With that said, they’ve made it clear for months now that they’re not preparing for some third-place game. They’re going to Fargo with the hopes of winning the whole thing. It’s a goal the team’s been all-in on since the beginning of the season. The December loss to FW/M humbled them, but they’ve been coming up with “statement wins,” as Wylee Delorme put it, ever since.
Devils Lake boys’ basketball has only won one championship in its history: back in 1925, when there was only one class. It beat Wahpeton 22-14 in the final. Devils Lake reached the championship game again in 1932 — the last year of the one-class era — but lost 23-20 to Fargo Central.
Since then, the Firebirds have made it to seven state championship games and lost all seven. They most recently made it in 1999, when they lost 72-66 to Minot.
The girls recently brought home their fourth title ever, and first since 1987. It would be something to behold if the boys and girls both brought home the gold this year. There’s no guarantee of anything, and Devils Lake is going to have to play its best basketball this week — but the Firebirds certainly have enough talent to make a serious bid at that achievement.
The excitement will be in full gear come tournament time.
