No. 2 Devils Lake grinds through slow first half against Wahpeton to keep undefeated record alive

DEVILS LAKE — The Firebirds have been challenged lately.

Sure, they’re still undefeated, with a sparkly 15-0 record. But after Thursday’s 59-49 win over Wahpeton (10-7, 7-2), the Devils Lake boys’ basketball team (15-0, 5-0) has had to persevere through three straight nail-biters now. Devils Lake turned the ball over nearly 20 times in the imperfect victory.

“Physically, I think they outplayed us,” Firebirds head coach Dustin Brodina said of the Huskies. “They did the little things a lot better than us. We’re lucky to come out with a win on that one.”

Devils Lake trailed by two at the end of the first quarter and by as many as seven in the first half. The Firebirds rode a 17-0 run between the second and third quarters to propel into the lead.

Still, Wahpeton had the margin at a single digit late in the fourth quarter.

Parker Brodina led the scoring with 18 points, making a triple in three of the four quarters. Joel Nelson had 12 and Trason Beck had 11.

Two of its key players were quieted, though. Mason Palmer, who finished with eight points overall, didn’t have a field goal until the second half. Oliver Wirth only had two points, both from free throws. He had zero points in the first half and no field goals on the evening.

“He’s just gotta keep working hard and not let the mental aspect get to him,” Brodina said. “You can’t let little things affect your game… When things don’t go your way, and your back’s against the wall, that shows what kind of character you have.”

Devils Lake committed five turnovers in the first 3:15 of the game. Brodina got the scoring going with a three, but Wahpeton responded with an 8-0 run.

The Firebirds also had five personal fouls in the first 4:36 of the contest. On the fifth one, Jack Gilbertson was hurt enough to come out of the game and miss the rest of the contest. Wahpeton missed two consecutive and-one attempts, but it still led 10-5.

Beck, after going 1-of-2 from the line, got the put-back on his own missed free throw. He had five straight Devils Lake points as the Firebirds trailed 10-8.

At the end of the first quarter, Wahpeton had a 12-10 lead. And it only swayed further in the Huskies’ favor in the second quarter with a three off the bench from Jackson DeVries and four points by Treyton Mauch.

Wahpeton’s lead was as large as 21-14.

“It’s just complete lack of focus and discipline,” Brodina said. “We’ve gotta be a lot better at that. We can’t just throw the ball away.”

Devils Lake missed numerous put-backs at the rim, struggled to grab defensive rebounds and couldn’t land its shots. Beck, usually the quietest scorer in the starting five, had seven of the Firebirds’ first 14 points.

“He was kind of the one that did a lot of little things for us tonight,” Brodina said of Beck. “And Wahpeton, they beat us in all the little things, but Tray did a lot. He got some offensive rebounds and some steals that helped us.”

Just as quickly as Devils Lake dug itself into a hole, it worked right back out of it. Max Palmer and Nelson each connected on a triple, trimming the lead to one point. Nelson bounced one in off the backboard to give Devils Lake a 22-21 lead.

The Firebirds had the final possession of the half. They dribbled it down patiently, and Max Palmer landed another three right before the buzzer. It was his second of the game and Devils Lake’s fourth.

So the Firebirds led 25-21 after an 11-0 run to cap the first half.

“That was great to get that momentum going,” Brodina said. “I don’t really want to rely on the three as much as we have, but they went in.”

And they carried that over with six more points to start the second half. Wahpeton was issued a bench warning after Mauch’s third foul, to which Huskies head coach Jeff Ralph vocally disagreed.

Bjorn Kubela was charged with his fourth foul, and Wahpeton was hit with a technical foul and more conversation between Ralph and the ref. Brodina went 1-of-2 from the line after the technical.

Devils Lake’s 17-0 run ended on a three by Landon Ralph, cutting the lead to 31-26. Nelson made his own three that rolled around the rim, helping boost the advantage back up to double digits.

But Brodina missed a couple of shots near the rim. Brayden Steffens made five straight points for Wahpeton, and the lead was trimmed to 41-36.

It was as close as a six-point game early in the fourth quarter. Ralph fouled out — the second Wahpeton starter to be done for the game. Brodina hit a triple to get Devils Lake’s lead back to 11.

Wahpeton mostly stood pat with Devils Lake for the rest of the quarter. It never mounted a full comeback, but the Firebirds weren’t able to just rest or relax, either. It was only a 10-point win for Devils Lake over an unranked team from Region 1. Its last three margins of victory have been 13, 18 and now 10. That was after beating a ranked Thompson team by 28.

Still, this is a 15-0 and No. 2-ranked Firebirds squad.

“We’re sitting all right. Obviously, we’ve won every game,” Brodina said. “But we don’t want to peak too early. So maybe this is that little lull in the season. And we can build off of it and learn from it. Because not everything’s gonna be just pretty red roses, right? So we’ve just gotta be a lot more disciplined if we want to play the very last days of the year.”