Benson County head coach Bryan Kenner gives his team a pep talk during Thursday’s game. (Photo by Mojo Hill)
DEVILS LAKE — Basketball season is officially in full swing.
The Lake Region Invitational tipped off Thursday, with eight teams battling at the Devils Lake Sports Center in the annual early-season girls’ basketball tournament.
In the first quarterfinal game of the day, defending champion, No. 1-ranked Benson County rolled over Larimore. In the second game, Devils Lake JV fell to a solid Griggs/Midkota squad.
Benson County and G/M — who played each other on Monday — will square off again in Friday’s semifinals. Devils Lake JV, meanwhile, moved to a consolation semifinal game against Larimore.
Defending champions get the tournament started
Benson County improved to 2-0 in the early going with a 67-29 win over Larimore (0-1).
The Wildcats were champions of this tournament last year before going on to win the state title.
“Our only expectation is we’ve got to play to our standard every night,” Benson County head coach Bryan Kenner said. “We had a couple moments where we kind of lapsed a little bit. Some shots didn’t fall, and we kind of hung our heads a little. But our defensive intensity and our transition game has to be at the standard every night.”
The Wildcats got off to a cold shooting start, but their early defense was strong. It was 8-0 more than halfway through the first quarter.
A sudden 7-0 Larimore run got the Polar Bears within one point.
“We’re going to have nights where shots don’t fall,” Kenner said. “Our style of play, I encourage my kids to know what their shots are. But it took us a little while to adjust. Sometimes, if those outside shots aren’t falling, we’ve got lots of actions. We can’t get lazy and just go back to that.”
Benson County, though, forced a ton of turnovers, including steals on both ends of the court. The Wildcats went on a 10-0 run that extended into the second quarter, and they took off to a 20-point lead by halftime.
“Our defensive intensity was great,” Kenner said. “Especially playing at 3 in the afternoon on a Thursday; that’s a hard time to play. But I tell them they’ve got to learn to bring their own energy. I thought, especially at the start of the game, we were very aggressive.”
Lacie Fautsch had a strong game in the post, coming off a season opener where she was limited in the second half. She scored 11 points in each half of Thursday’s game to finish with 22 overall. And that was despite not playing in the fourth quarter.
“She’s really hard on herself. I knew this was the kind of game she was going to have,” Kenner said. “We really looked to attack the roll of that ball screen tonight, and kind of feed her a little bit more.”
The Wildcats had a 29-0 run between the second and third quarter. They outscored Larimore 32-3 over a stretch. The Polar Bears didn’t score in the second half until the 1:33 mark in the third quarter, on a layup by Aleah Petsinger. She led Larimore with 12 points off the bench.
Benson County forced fouls inside and got to the free throw line frequently in the second half. The Wildcats went 18-for-22 from the line. On the other side, Larimore struggled to finish at the rim.
“We like to think we’re a pretty good free throw shooting team,” Kenner said. “I think our style of play is going to put us on the line quite a bit.”
Aubrey Kenner had a quiet first half, but she scored nine points in the third quarter to finish with 13 overall. Addisyn Faul scored 11, and Kaitlyn Maddock had eight.
Ella Fossen, while sticking strong on defense, added six.
“She’s a great player,” Kenner said of Fossen. “She probably doesn’t get on the stat sheet as much as the other ones, so it’s missed. But her defensive intensity: huge. The way she runs in transition, some of those transition layups she gets, she’s so fast she can beat girls down the court. We want her to be a threat there. It changes the way teams have to defend us, for sure.”
Firebirds JV gets tested by solid Class B varsity team
Devils Lake has a relatively inexperienced varsity team, and it trickles down to the junior varsity.
While the Firebirds improved from a tough scoring game against Valley City’s JV on Tuesday, they were still outpaced in a 62-46 loss to Griggs/Midkota (1-1).
“We’re young. We don’t have any varsity experience,” said Devils Lake JV head coach Tyler Marquart, who’s also an assistant on the varsity girls’ basketball and state champion football teams. “I feel like Griggs, they’ve got some size on us. … They put some pressure on the ball that we weren’t expecting on the wings. Our bigs didn’t really produce like we wanted them to.”
The player who’s gotten the most varsity time is sophomore Dottie Goss. She was tied for the team lead with nine points on Thursday, but she limped off with an injury in the fourth quarter.
“We needed another ball handler, and that’s Dottie,” Marquart said. “We needed somebody with a little bit of varsity experience to maybe push and score a little bit and lead the team. It’s unfortunate what happened. … She played a pretty good game. She had some key passes, some rebounds. She pushed the tempo, and she scored some points.”
Marquart added that he doesn’t know how severe Goss’s injury is, but that she probably won’t play on Friday.
Freshman Tenley Triepke also had nine points on Thursday. She’s in her first year on varsity. Sophomore Brynlee Wolf added eight.
“Tenley’s got some speed,” Marqaurt said. “Tenley has some ball-handling ability. Her size is an issue. But Riley Schmiess on the outside, she’s a feisty little guard. She can handle the ball, too. … We’ve got some people that will step up into those roles. We’re just down one player, a leader. She’ll be around, but somebody else has just got to step up now. Have to lean on our bigs a little bit more.”
Devils Lake does feature some size in 6-foot-2 freshman Julia Rohr.
Sticking out amongst the crowd height-wise, Rohr had seven points on three field goals.
“She’s got the size, which you can’t coach,” Marquart said. “She’s a little raw when it comes to the skill building and whatnot, but she’s a freshman. We work with her. That size is key. Her touch got better over the last couple days. … She’s got to be a little bit quicker, and that comes with experience.”
After 16 points in the first half, Devils Lake doubled its point total in the third quarter.
But the Firebirds turned the ball over nearly 30 times and couldn’t keep up with the Titans, who got 22 points from senior star Kelsey Johnson, along with 14 each from Jessa and Kadence Spickler.
“Our age, our size, our strength’s a little bit not off to par where we want it to be,” Marquart said. “So any sort of contact kind of throws us off a little bit. … Turnovers is always going to be our Achilles heel.”
Regardless of results, a tournament like this is valuable experience for a JV squad that’s just trying to get some reps and see improvement every day. The other teams in the bracket are all varsity, including a Class A region foe in Four Winds/Minnewaukan.
“It doesn’t bother me, Class A, Classs B — they’re all the same age. They’re all still the same experience,” Marquart said. “These are the kids that need to get this experience against girls that are older, girls that have maybe played since they were seventh-graders, and now they’re seniors. Just the knowledge of the game is different, and then that’s just a great kind of proving ground for our youngsters to work their way up to get on that varsity roster and help us out.”
Friday’s slate of four games starts at 3 p.m. Devils Lake JV vs. Larimore is the first game, while Benson County vs. G/M is the third.
