Photo by Emily Daniels Minneota’s Lizzy Gillingham drives past a Lac qui Parle Valley defender during their Camden Conference championship game on Monday. The Vikings defeated the Eagles 62-36.

MADISON — It was a championship fight between the Lac Qui Parle Valley Eagles and Minneota Vikings. At halftime, it looked like either team could come away with the win, with Minneota holding a 29-24 advantage. But the Vikings showed why they are the No. 1 girls basketball team in Class A in the second half, outscoring the Eagles 33-12 after halftime for the 62-36 win in the Camden Conference Championship game.

Teamwork played a big role in the victory for the Vikings.

“Early in the game we were trying to go 1-1 with people and they were doing a nice job of helping off, but we weren’t seeing the open people,” said Minneota coach Chad Johnston. “A little bit later in the game we started to see the open people and realize what they were doing. We got easy looks because of doing that.”

LQPV started the night off going on a 5-point run that gave them a 7-4 lead with 14:04 left in the half.

Morgan Kockelman showed early signs of a successful night at the point, but Minneota trailed the Eagles 9-8 with 12:11 remaining on the clock. Lydia Sussner saw her opportunities to help the Vikings not fall too far behind but Sussner’s shots weren’t connecting as much as she wanted them too, but that picked up her teammates.

The Eagles continued to fight to take the lead the back at 20-15 with 7:32 left in the first half. Sussner continued her successful night under the basket helping the Vikings close the gap on the Eagles, 22-18 with 3:48 remaining in the half. With a 3-pointer from Abby Hennen, the Vikings took a 22-21 lead and didn’t look back. They finished the half going on a 6-point run and a 29-24 lead going into halftime.

The Vikings knew what they needed to do to finish the night off with a win. Minneota started the half off going on an 8-point run that gave them a 37-26 lead early on in the second with 15:03 left in the game.

The Vikings found the connection on offense that was missing in the first half. Minneota continued to grow their lead over LQPV with 11:45 remaining in the game, they held a 45-28 lead. The Eagles started to lack the confidence on the offensive end and that sparked the Vikings to pick it up on defense, this helped them hold a 20-point lead with 8:31 remaining in the game. Morgan Hennen showed her strengths on the offensive end and helped the Vikings keep a 57-33 lead with 4:43 remaining in the half.

With Minneota holding a steady lead over the Eagles, they slowed down the play on both ends of the court. As the final minutes of the game went down on the clock Minneota found themselves holding off the Eagles and becoming the Camden Conference champions with a final score of 62-36.

The Vikings were led by Sussner who racked in a total of 22 points and was followed by Morgan Hennen with a total of 19 points. Morgan Hennen also led Minneota in assists with five, followed by Lizzy Gillingham, Abby Rost and Sussner with two each. The Vikings shot 24 of 48 for total shots and 7 of 9 shots at the free-throw line.

With conference play wrapping up, the Vikings are readying for Section 3A Tournament play at the end of the week. Johnston sees a lot of positive things that the team has right now that they can take going forward.

“One of the things that we can take away is defense,” said Johnston. “This is a good offensive team. They’ve got a lot of offensive threats and a lot of speed. So, the fact that we did what we did in the second half was good. They put pressure on us, and we haven’t seen a lot of that.”

Minneota will be on the road tonight as they face the Lakeview Lakers in Cottonwood.