Photo by Jake McNeill Dawson-Boyd guard Gunner Liebl (0) dribbles the ball toward the paint in the first half of a boys basketball game against Lakeview in Cottonwood on Friday night.

COTTONWOOD — Gunner Liebl scored a game-high 33 points on 15-of-21 shooting Friday night to help the No. 2 Dawson-Boyd boys basketball team remain undefeated with an 86-51 road win over Lakeview.

“My teammates were finding me in the open spots and I was converting on them,” Liebl said of his career-high scoring performance. “It feels pretty good, helping my team, contribute and hope we can try to win the game.”

It didn’t take the Blackjacks long to show why they’re among the top teams in the section. Kade Solem, Drew Hjelmeland and Liebl each scored a basket to start the game’s first three minutes off with seven unanswered points. After a Lakeview timeout, Brayson Boike rose up over a group of defenders to give the Blackjacks a 9-0 lead before Landon Albertson finally ended the opening run with a layup nearly five minutes into the game.

Liebl’s active hands on defense frequently set up Dawson-Boyd transition opportunities. His three steals in the game trailed only Tyden Marczak’s four and his three deflections were a game-high. About six minutes into the game, Liebl stole the ball, ran down the court and tossed the ball off the glass to set up an alley-oop for a trailing Boike. The dunk gave Dawson-Boyd its first double-digit lead of the game, 13-2.

“Just trying to put yourself in the right position and be active. You need to be there with your feet first and then you can use your hands, but just positioning yourself off-ball [was key],” Dawson-Boyd head coach Cory Larson said when asked about the team’s defensive efforts.

Boike finished as the game’s second-leading scorer with 26 points on 11-of-17 shooting while Hjelmeland added another 16 points. Hjelmeland’s two 3-pointers also tied Jaxton Hastad for second on the team behind Liebl’s three.

“Those are three guys that are difficult to match up against and defend for 36 minutes. Some teams have done a decent job of it for parts of games, but to do it for 36 minutes is pretty draining,” Larson said, adding that the Blackjacks’ ability to space the floor with shooters that aren’t necessarily volume scorers has been a big part of opening up the floor for Liebl, Boike and Hjelmeland.

The Blackjacks led by as many as 17 points in the first half before the Lakers started to fight back. Braylon Breyfogle finally brought the game back to single digits after fighting through contact for an and-1, making the score 21-30.

“We just told the guys that you’ve got to stand up to them,” Lakeview head coach Jared Keaveny said of his team’s rally at the end of the half. “You’ve got to stand up and fight because they’re not going to back down. They’re not going to go away and our guys just continued to scrap and claw. We’ve kind of hung our hat on that this year. We’ve got a very young team, a small team, but we’re really just trying to stay in the fight. They keep climbing, scratching and found a way to keep themselves in the game.”

Liebl answered Breyfogle’s basket with a 3-pointer of his own but Albertson hit 3-pointers on consecutive possessions to make it an 8-point game. A few moments later, a layup and a 3-pointer from Tyden Marczak cut the deficit to 5 points, 37-32. Yet, Boike received an assist from Liebl, who was driving down the baseline, and made the shot and the free throw after getting fouled to make the score 40-32 at halftime.

“I think halfway through the half, we didn’t defend the 3-point line very well and they took advantage. Give them credit, we got beat a couple of times off of direct line drives, had to go with deep help and give them better opportunities out at 20 feet and they knocked them down,” Larson said.

Marczak finished the game with 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting for the Lakers. He and Albertson, who finished with 11 points, each shot 3-of-4 from 3-point range in the game.

Dawson-Boyd finished the game with a 42-19 rebounding advantage built largely on the backs of 6-foot-7 Boike and 6-foot-6 Hjelmeland. Boike led the game with 13 rebounds, four of which were offensive, while Hjelmeland had another six boards. Liebl, a 6-foot-flat guard, also had seven boards in the game. Helmke led Lakeview with six rebounds.

The Blackjacks’ frontcourt duo’s height proved even more useful defensively than it did on the boards. Hjelmeland finished the game with five blocks for the Blackjacks while Boike had another three.

Marczak started the second half with a steal and a transition layup to cut the deficit back to 6 points. After another Boike shot off the glass for 2 points, Helmke got another post basket and Albertson drew a charge to give Lakeview the opportunity to make it a 4-point game. Yet, Dawson-Boyd got the stop and Lakeview wasn’t able to come any closer than that for the remainder of the game.

Liebl carried the offensive load in the first half with 18 points before the break while Boike carried the load after the break with 16 points. Liebl and Boike each had five assists in the game to tie for a game-high.

The Lakers were within 9 points with 12 minutes remaining when the Lakers started to pull away rapidly. Just five minutes later, Hjelmeland finished a basket through contact and Jaxton Hastad hit 3-pointers on consecutive possessions to make the score 73-45 for the Blackjacks’ largest lead of the game at the time.

“It starts with getting stops on the defensive end, multiple stops in a row, but then obviously converting on the offensive end. You would think when you have a run that things went quicker but I actually thought we just exhibited a little bit more patience on the offensive end to turn a good shot into a great shot,” Larson said of the team’s late run.

Boike connected on a 3-pointer with five minutes remaining, grabbed a rebound on the defensive end and then hit Liebl in stride with an outlet pass to set up a layup for an 82-48 Dawson-Boyd lead.

With three minutes left, Dawson-Boyd and Lakeview both took out the last of their starters with the Blackjacks leading by 36 points.

Coming off a season in which the Lakers were one of the top teams in the section, Lakeview graduated much of its roster, including current Southwest Minnesota State forward Nathan Fenske. As such, they’ve had some growing pains with a younger and less experienced roster. Still, Keaveny said he’s liked much of what he’s seen out of his team.

“The biggest thing we want them to do is just work hard. When you work hard, good things happen. That’s what these kids have really done. They’ve responded every night and they keep working to get better,” Keaveny said. “Their attitudes have been great. It’s tough to go through some losses but these guys have really just continued to come to work… you show up, you put the time in and it’ll click eventually. You’ve just got to be patient.”

Dawson-Boyd remains a perfect 14-0 with the win. It was slated for a game against South Dakota’s top-ranked team, Castlewood, in Deubrook, S.D. tonight but the game was postponed due to weather. The Blackjacks’ next game will now come on the road against Montevideo (8-5) on Tuesday at 7:15 p.m.

“We want to go challenge ourselves. You’re playing one of the top teams in Class B in South Dakota, it forces you to play well. If we’re going to grow, we’ve got to challenge ourselves,” Larson said of the originally scheduled matchup against Castlewood.

Lakeview falls to 4-10 with the loss. They’ll try to avoid their fifth straight defeat when they host Lac qui Parle Valley (3-8) on Friday at 7:15 p.m.

“We fought as hard as we could against one of the top teams in the state. The final score doesn’t show the whole story of the game and that’s what I told the guys. I said to focus on all the good things we did,” Keaveny said. “We made some mistakes, but we made them being very, very aggressive. When you’re doing that, eventually you’re going to figure it out. You don’t want to be passive and sitting back, you want to be upfront and attack teams, especially one of the better teams in the state. I thought we did a really good job of not backing down and just kept going at it.”