DEVILS LAKE — Benson County continued rolling through its early-season tournament Friday evening.
The Wildcats (3-0), ranked No. 6 in Class B, advanced to Saturday’s Lake Region Invitational final with a 59-23 win on Friday. They beat Nelson County (2-2), a team from the opposite side of the lake. All three of Benson County’s wins have been by 36 points or more.
After a summer of development against tough competition, the Wildcats are making themselves known to the rest of the state.
“When you’ve got a group like that that’s committed, it’s a pretty easy job for me as a coach,” Benson County head coach Bryan Kenner said. “I can just sit back, and they kind of do it. And the fact that they’ve played together so long. They took some lumps when they were young; they had to play a lot of minutes when they maybe weren’t quite ready. And they’ve really come a long ways now.”
Junior Aubrey Kenner led the Wildcats with 19 points, while freshman Lacie Fautsch added 14 and sophomore Kaitlyn Maddock put up 12. They struggled from the free throw line, making just 17 out of 35 attempts. But a 21-0 run in the first half put them way over the top early, and their defense held strong throughout.
“Pressure defense is what we really hang our hat on,” B. Kenner said. “Even when we’re not hitting shots, the one thing we always do is keep our intensity up on defense. I thought we were really good with that tonight. We forced them into a lot of turnovers. We pushed the ball down the court. We try to tire teams out, and I thought that’s what we did tonight.”
Benson County came out tight, giving up an immediate basket to Kenley Blasey. Kenner missed a layup, and Fatusch missed a pair of free throws. The Wildcats couldn’t take advantage of a slew of initial turnovers.
But after a brief timeout, Maddock found the rim for Benson County’s first points at 6:08. It spiraled into 21 straight points for the Wildcats, despite going just 4-of-11 from the free throw line in the first quarter. Isabella Engstrom and Kenner each had a steal and a layup. Maddock swished a three-pointer coming out of a timeout. And the Chargers had little response.
“What I’ve found is a lot of times it takes us a moment to get our groove on, get flowing a little bit,” B. Kenner said. “We tend to give up an early bucket or two, and then we kind of get on a roll where we get some steals and layups in transition. And when we get going where our defense and our transition offense are running together and clicking, is when we play our best basketball.”
The Wildcats finished the first half on a 10-0 run, running the score up to 40-10. Kenner put up 10 in the second quarter, finishing with 14 at the half. Fautsch, despite missing a trio of free throws in the first quarter, had 11 points at halftime. Maddock also reached double figures.
Kenner missed a pair of threes in the third quarter, but Fautsch and Maddock were right there to back her up with the put-backs.
Fautsch went only 4-of-10 from the free throw line but still finished with 14 points.
“Tremendous player,” Kenner said. “She did so much work in the summer for us. Really proud of the way she’s coming on. She’s a game changer for us. I think a lot of people knew what we had with our guards last year and some of our shooting presence, and the way her game’s developed, it’s completely changed what we do offensively.”
Maddock’s 12-point performance included Benson County’s only two successful triples of the night. She was a key cog in the Wildcats’ offense throughout the contest.
“Kaitlyn is such a facilitator for us,” Kenner said. “She doesn’t get enough credit. A lot of times, everybody wants to look at the scoring, but she’s given us seven, eight assists tonight, six or seven steals. Our whole offense runs because of the way she sets us up and gets us going. Just really, really proud of how our team’s come together.”
Kenner also praised one of his other starters, junior guard Ella Fossen. Though not as prolific a scorer as A. Kenner, Maddock or Fautsch, she’s just as much a part of why this team is off to such a strong start, B. Kenner said.
“She’s really done a lot of stuff for us that maybe doesn’t always show up,” Kenner said. “She does a lot of defensive stuff. I just kind of want to do a little shoutout to her… Sometimes she gets swept under the radar a little bit, and that’s kind of what makes us so good. I think sometimes our kids that don’t get a lot of attention are really, really good basketball players, and that’s why we’re playing as well as we are right now.”
The win advanced Benson County to the tournament championship alongside Griggs/Midkota, which beat Devils Lake JV in the final game of the day Friday.
