NORTH SIOUX CITY — With the rating tied late within the first quarter, Dakota Valley’s Jaxon Hennies knocked down an open three from the nook, giving the Panthers a 21-18 lead over Hartington Cedar Catholic.
The trey, which introduced the house crowd to their ft, ignited a 20-8 run by the top-ranked Panthers the rest of the half. Isaac Bruns’ put again off a missed shot gave Dakota Valley a 41-26 lead on the intermission.
Main by as many as 27 factors within the second half, the defending South Dakota Class A state champions cruised to a 86-64 win Thursday night time over Cedar Catholic, which got here into the marquee cross-state matchup ranked No. 3 in Nebraska’s Class D2.
The Panthers had been purple sizzling from the sector, hitting 31-of-55 pictures, or 67.7%, together with 10-of-24 from past the three-point stripe, or 41.7%.
Hennies, a senior guard, was 4-of-5 from past the arch, ending with 14 factors.
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“He had a number of nights the place he has not shot it like he is able to doing,” head coach Jason Kleis mentioned. “Tonight, his 14 factors had been a wild card for us, it type of bought us going. It was huge.”
Bruns, the reigning Class A Participant of the Yr, was 10-of-20 from the sector, together with 2-of-6 from downtown, and an ideal 5-of-5 from the free throw stripe, as he totaled a game-high 27 factors.
“It was an amazing win,” mentioned Bruns, a College of South Dakota recruit. “We had been trying to play like that for some time… I assumed we got here up with loads of vitality and saved it going throughout the fourth.”
Dakota Valley level guard Randy Rosenquist, like Bruns a returning First-Workforce All-State choice, was everywhere in the courtroom, passing to open teammates and developing with rebounds and free balls all through the sport. The senior completed with 17 factors, 9 rebounds, seven assists and two steals.
“It is type of my function with this crew,” Rosenquist mentioned. “I type of gotta do the whole lot, from scoring to passing.”
Kleis mentioned the crew’s depth on protection was significantly better in opposition to Cedar Catholic than in current video games, together with a hard-fought 55-50 win over West Central Tuesday night time.
“We had a troublesome wild recreation on Tuesday in opposition to a extremely athletic, bodily crew, however we did not assume our effort on protection was possibly what it wanted to be,” he mentioned. “Tonight was higher, for certain, in opposition to a great Cedar crew.”
The Trojans had been 26-of-62 from the sector, or 41.9%, and simply 4-of-16 from behind the three-point line, or 25%.
“We had some good open appears to be like that simply rattled out and in,” assistant coach Nick Haselhorst mentioned.
Senior Andrew Jones led Cedar with 14 factors and senior Jaxson Bernecker and sophomore Nolan Becker every had 13 factors.
Bernecker, the Trojans main scorer and a returning All-State choice, was 5-of-12 from the sector.
Haselhorst mentioned Cedar ran right into a “very proficient crew” Thursday night time.
“They’ve scorers at each place. They’ve measurement, quickness, size. We knew we had been going to have our palms full,” he mentioned.
The Trojans, who fell to 8-2, confronted the second of three video games this week in opposition to state-ranked groups that had been all undefeated on the time. On Tuesday night time, Cedar handed rival Wynot, ranked No. 2 in Nebraska Class D2, their first lack of the season. On Friday, the Trojans host 10-0 Pierce, ranked No. 3 in Nebraska Class D1. The Jays handed Cedar their solely different loss this season, 59-39, in a vacation match in Wayne final month.
“We will stroll away from this week being higher for it,” Haselhorst mentioned. “We misplaced one tonight so we need to get again on the successful facet (Friday) and stroll away 2-1 on the week.”