Photo by Chris Drummond Dawson-Boyd Blackjacks Allison Estling (23) shoots a jumper in Friday’s night action against the Lakeview Lakers in Section 3A playoffs play-in game.

DAWSON– The Dawson-Boyd Blackjacks girls basketball team defeated the Lakeview Lakers in the opening round of the Section 3A playoffs 59-49 on Friday evening. The Blackjacks will face off against the Lac Qui Parle Valley Eagles this morning at 11 a.m. and the Lakers season comes to an end.

The Blackjacks and the Lakers played a tightly contested first half of basketball. The Lakers took the early lead behind Aubreigh Rausch and Meg Schwartz’s opening baskets of the game.

Then the Blackjacks responded behind Kate Dahl scoring 13 first-half points forging the Blackjacks into the lead at halftime 29-23.

Rebounding was the key for both teams as a lot of second-chance points were scored. Schwartz led the Lakers in scoring with 8 points in the opening half.

In the second half, the Lakers made a brief run behind a defensive press and cut the deficit to three.

However, that would be as close as they would get.

The Blackjacks would figure out the Lakers’ press and be able to score on it pushing the lead back to double-digits. The Lakers wouldn’t threaten again.

“I told my team at halftime, that they’re two halves in basketball,” Blackjacks head coach Rachel Hakanson said. “We have to come out and finish it. We have to play with effort and that’s what we did.”

The Blackjacks hit their free throws down the stretch and would hold off the Lakers to advance, 59-49. Dahl had a double-double with 18 points and 12 rebounds. Ayiana Hastad had 11 points and six rebounds and Hayley Anderson had 10 points with eight rebounds, four of which were offensive. The Blackjacks had a total of 11 offensive rebounds.

“This year’s team has improved so much,” Dahl said. “We won one game last year and now we have won our ninth game. We stayed good on fouls. Our shooting was good. We all contributed on points. I think we wanted it more.”

Schwartz led the Lakers in scoring with 13 points and had a team-high five rebounds. Shelby Justesen had 9 points in the loss and Korysa Herrick had 6 points in the contest.

“It was a game of runs,” Lakers head coach Mike Imes said. “There were two things that stood out to me about this game. First off we didn’t rebound the ball well at all tonight. We did a poor job and secondly, they hit timely shots off of those offensive rebounds. It has been the story of our season, we played well enough to win and poor enough to lose.”

The win is the first time the Blackjacks won a pigtail game in the program and weren’t seeded last as well.