Photo by Jake McNeill Russell-Tyler-Ruthton basketball players Carson Gylling (right) and Drew Werkman (left) embrace on the bench as the Knights put the finishing touches on their Section 3A Championship win over Central Minnesota Christian at Southwest Minnesota State University’s R/A Facility on Thursday night. The Knights’ 67-47 win sends them to their third consecutive Class A tournament.

MARSHALL — Three was the magic number for the Russell-Tyler-Ruthton boys basketball team on Thursday night. The Knights came into the Section 3A championship as the No. 3 seed out of the South bracket to take on Central Minnesota Christian, the No. 3 seed out of the North bracket. After a hard-fought, defensive-minded first half, the Knights pulled away after the break for a 67-47 win to claim their third consecutive section title.

Thursday’s win is the second time that the Knights have defeated the Bluejays in the 3A championship game in the last three years, picking up a 62-59 overtime win in the 2022 section championship game. The Knights also defeated Dawson-Boyd in last year’s section finals before claiming a state championship over New Life Academy. Still, there were some doubts coming into this year after the Knights graduated a large chunk of their contributors.

“We knew it was going to take time to get back to where we wanted to be, but me, Drew [Werkman] and Carson [Gylling] being good leaders, we knew we could lead it,” RTR guard Blake Christianson said. “Chase [Christianson] stepped up, it was great to get all these guys coming together as a team. It took us about halfway through the season and now we’re finally rolling.”

RTR went into the second half holding a 22-19 lead. They didn’t take long to expand on their first-half success. Chase Christianson started the half with a steal that led to a pair of Andrew Meyers free throws and Blake Christianson came back with a layup on the next RTR possession. Drew Duininck finally interrupted the run with a turnaround jumper along the baseline but a Chase Christianson 3-pointer gave the Knights a 29-21 lead when CMC called its first timeout just over two minutes into the half.

The Bluejays whittled the Knights’ lead down to 4 points, 35-31, when RTR snapped back into form. Elijah Determan started the run with a pair of free throws. Drew Werkman threaded the needle to a cutting Chase Christianson along the baseline for an easy layup and a pair of free throws from Blake Christianson gave the Knights their first double-digit lead, 41-31, with 10:40 to play.

The Knights had no problem being selfless on the offensive end of the court. The ball distribution started with Blake Christianson. One of two seniors on the team alongside Werkman, Christianson dished out a game-high five assists while also tying Chase Christianson as the Knights’ second-leading scorer. Drew Werkman led the team with 17 points while Andrew Meyers and Carson Gylling also contributed to the team’s balanced scoring effort with 12 and 8 points respectively.

“It’s been a different role for me this year with Aiden [Wichmann] graduating last year. He’s always been the one to do that [run the offense], so I finally started to figure it out,” Blake Christianson said. “People are cutting great to the hoop, so it was awesome to see. I mean, we had four people in double figures.”

Duininck ended the Bluejays’ three-minute scoring drought with a baseline finger roll off the feed from Roelofs but Meyer responded with baskets on each of the Knights’ next three possessions to make it a 47-34 game.

Werkman kept the run going with a layup immediately after he caught a baseline inbound pass and then he hit a 3-pointer to extend RTR’s lead to 52-34, prompting CMC to call a timeout with 7:10 remaining.

An Asher Wieberdink 3-pointer trimmed the Bluejays’ deficit to 16 points with 4:35 to play but that’s as close as CMC got for the remainder of the game. RTR led by as many as 21 points as they coasted to the win.

Duininck was the only Bluejay able to get anything going on the offensive end, finishing with a game-high 24 points on 9 of 32 shooting. Asher Wieberdink was the only other CMC player to crack double figures, finishing with 11 points after a pair of late 3-pointers.

“We had to pick our poison,” Gravley said. “Duininck is such a great player. He can score on all three levels, he’s a floor general, he does a great job of operating in their ball screen offense and he’s a tough player to guard. We just had to lock up, stay on Asher, find Micah for the extra pass, so we decided not to bring a lot of help to Drew and just tried to cover their shooters up.”

The Knights held the Bluejays to 30% shooting from 3-point range and 26% shooting from the field. While great defense is always a team effort, Chase Christianson was particularly impactful on that end of the court. The junior guard spent much of the night guarding Asher Weiberdink, holding him to 3 of 10 shooting from 3-point range just a game after he torched Minneota for 23 points on 7 of 11 3-point shooting in the 3A North championship. Christianson also accounted for three of the Knights’ four steals, the other coming from Blake Christianson.

“We were trying not to let [Weiberdink] or Duininck touch the ball really, just trying to get in their face, hand up, defense the whole time,” Chase Christianson said.

“[Chase] did a great job of constantly chasing [Weiberdink] around, did a great job of playing through screens,” Gravley said of Christianson’s defense, adding that the team’s communication was also a key part of the success on that end of the floor. “Eli Determan came in and did the same thing off the bench for us. Eli’s a similar size as chase, so I thought we had a good size matchup on him on that perimeter shot and both of those guys worked their tails off to try to deny him the ball and have a hand up when he caught it.”

From the opening tip, the Knights dominated the glass. That dominance down low started with Werkman, who grabbed 13 rebounds in the first half alone. The senior big man finished the night with 22 total rebounds, including six on the offensive glass, to lead the Knights to a 44-28 rebounding advantage. Chase Christianson also grabbed seven rebounds for RTR while Roelofs led CMC with 11 boards.

Micah Asake and Werkman traded baskets to start the game but a long 2-pointer from Ryan Harrington and a defensive stop gave the Bluejays the first lead to last more than one possession.

After a scoreless minute, Carson Gylling dished it to Meyers inside for the tying layup and a Chase Christianson putback off a missed shot gave the Knights their first lead of the day three minutes in.

The lead didn’t last long. Drew Duininck tied the game right back up with a layup of his own. Chase Christianson stopped a CMC fastbreak by grabbing a steal and converting a go-ahead layup in transition but Asher Wieberdink responded with another 3 to make the score 9-8 in favor of the Bluejays.

Wieberdink’s long-range shot with 13:21 remaining turned out to be CMC’s last lead of the game. Werkman recovered a tipped pass in the restricted area and turned it into a go-ahead basket and a Blake Christianson steal gave RTR a 12-9 advantage.

Duininck ended the Bluejays’ three-minute drought with a layup and Logan Roelofs had the opportunity to give CMC the lead with a pair of free throws. Yet, he missed both and Blake Christianson made the Bluejays pay with a 3-pointer to make the score 15-11.

Even when the game was tight, Gravley had faith in his team’s depth. While some teams tighten up their rotation in the postseason, Gravley still put eight players in the game during the first half, a decision he attributed to his players’ body of work.

“We trust them and they trust each other,” Gravley said. “You can’t win with five guys. You need guys to come in and do an effective job of playing defense and rebounding the basketball and taking care of the basketball on the offensive end. It was a total team victory.”

Duininck made it a one-possession game again after converting on a layup but the Knights shut the Bluejays out for the next four minutes to change the tide of the game. Werkman knocked down a putback shot and fed Meyers inside for a pair of free throws to make it a 4-point game. Gylling then hit a floater to give RTR its largest lead of the half, 21-15, with 3:14 remaining before halftime.

Nathan Wieberdink hit a jumper with his toe on the line to set up a 2-for-1 situation in the final minute of the first half. The Bluejays got a stop but the Knights responded by poking the ball loose on the defensive end. Duininck recovered and tried to launch up a shot as the final seconds ticked off the clock but the ball bounced harmlessly off the rim, allowing the Knights to carry a 3-point lead into halftime.

The Knights head into the state tournament at 23-7 after winning 12 consecutive games to claim the section title. The Knights will continue their quest to repeat as state champs when they begin the Class A quarterfinals at the Target Center in Minneapolis on Thursday.

“We’re proud of last year’s team, but I’m really proud of these guys for stepping out from behind that shadow and carving their own identity,” Gravley said, referencing last year’s 31-1 juggernaut team that put together an undefeated regular season. “They put in that work in the offseason and the time and dedication in practice, just saying, ‘Hey, now it’s our turn to shine.’ They really capitalized and seized the moment today.”

The tip-off time for RTR’s next game is yet to be determined, pending the seeding results which will be announced on Saturday.

“Bunch of kids haven’t been at state, so it’s going to be a new experience for a lot of people, but we’ve got to get everyone comfortable, get everyone fitted in with the system and then it’s time to roll,” Blake Christianson said.

State qualifiers (section, section seed, team name, record)

1A: No. 6 Goodhue (18-13)

8A: No. 1W Fertile-Beltrami (22-7)/No. 3E Red Lake (24-6)