Photo by Jake McNeill: Russell-Tyler-Ruthton senior guard Carson Gylling attempts a jump shot over a Cherry defender during a Class A boys basketball quarterfinal game at Target Center in Minneapolis on Thursday. On Friday, the Knights defeated Mountain Lake Area/Comfrey 83-65 in a Class A consolation semifinal game at Gangelhoff Center in St, Paul to advance to the consolation championship game today at 8 a.m., also to be played at Gangelhoff Center.

ST. PAUL — The Russell-Tyler-Ruthton Knights didn’t take any time licking their wounds after falling to Cherry in the first round of the Class A boys basketball tournament on Thursday. Facing the No. 4 Mountain Lake Area/Comfrey Wolverines in the consolation semifinals at Concordia University on Friday, the Knights overcame a first-half deficit to rally past the Wolverines for an 83-65 victory. The win sends them to the fifth-place game today.

The win was RTR’s second in three matchups against the Red Rock Conference-rival Wolverines. MLAC claimed the first battle 82-67 back on Jan. 4 but RTR evened the score with an 82-78 win on Feb. 8 and claimed the trilogy on Friday.

“It’s a real testament to how good our conference was with two teams at the state tournament, so that’s a feather in the cap for the conference,” RTR head coach Daren Gravley said. “Mountain Lake’s a very good basketball team, but we were fortunate enough to execute a little bit better offensively and make more shots today.”

An early basket from Grant Oakland and another two chrome Carter Olson led the Wolverines to a quick 6-2 lead.

The Knights came back to capture their first lead of the day courtesy of a Drew Werkman bucket and a Chase Christianson and-1. After Chase Anacker and Drew Werkman exchanged baskets, Carter Olson scored 7 points for the Wolverines on the next three possessions to pace MLAC to a 15-11 lead.

MLAC continued to extend its lead to as many as 7 points, last leading by that margin by a score of 26-19 with 7:38 to play.

Blake Christianson came up with a steal to set up a Carson Gylling transition basket. Gylling drew contact on the layup and converted his free throw and Eli Determan came up with another old-fashioned 3-pointer off another MLAC turnover to make it a 1-point game, 26-25, with six minutes to play.

Just over a minute later, Grant Oakland knocked down a 3-pointer to make it a two-possession game again for the Wolverines. The teams continued to go back and forth until a Werkman 3-pointer tied the game back up at 38-38 with two minutes to play and a Blake Christianson 3-pointer gave RTR a 43-42 lead with 35 seconds remaining in the first half.

While Blake Christianson was effective as a scorer, finishing with 11 points, he primarily contributed with his passing and defense. His four steals led RTR to an 11-2 advantage in points off turnovers and his five assists on two turnovers were a game-high. Carson Gylling and Sean Griesse added four and three assists respectively while Olson dished out a game-high six assists for the Wolverines.

Werkman put on an offensive clinic on the day, scoring a game-high 26 points on 11 of 20 from the field. The senior post player wasn’t awarded a single free throw attempt on the day but showed off his shooting touch with 4 of 7 shooting from beyond the arc. Gylling and Chase Christianson also finished with 17 and 16 points respectively.

Werkman’s effectiveness in close propelled RTR to a 40-22 advantage in points in the paint.

Christianson’s basket marked RTR’s first lead since the first five minutes of the half but Oakland came back with a layup to give MLAC a 44-43 lead going into halftime.

While Oakland was on fire after the first 18 minutes, his 13 first-half points trailing only Olson’s 14. The RTR defense adjusted in the second, holding him to 1 of 4 shooting from the field for 3 points after the break. Olson was the only Wolverine with more than 3 second-half points, finishing with 9 after the break.

“They got some open looks at the top of the key in the offensive set. They run a little staggered screen and we just talked about defending that a little better,” Gravley said of his team’s halftime adjustments. “We played some switching off of it and we prevented really clean looks. They missed some shots too, but we were contesting almost everything… we were just able to get a hand up and good ball pressure.”

Olson finished the game with a team-high 23 points on 10 of 24 from the field while Oakland finished with 16 points on 5 of 12 shooting. Alex Karschnik also added 12 points on 5 of 11 shooting.

Neither team led by more than 2 points for the first 10 minutes of the second half. With 8:43 remaining and the game tied at 57-57, Werkman hit a go-ahead jumper to spark an RTR run.

Chase Christianson followed Werkman’s bucket with an offensive rebound leading to a second-chance layup, Werkman drew an offensive foul on Oakland to set himself up for another 3-pointer and Gylling knocked down a layup to cap off a 10-0 run with a 67-57 RTR lead with 6:16 remaining.

RTR built a 20-12 advantage in second-chance points despite MLAC holding an 11-10 advantage in offensive rebounds. Still, RTR came away with a 46-41 overall rebounding advantage behind 16 rebounds from Werkman and another six apiece from Andrew Meyers and Chase Christianson. Kody Wassman led MLAC with eight rebounds.

After the run, the Wolverines never came any closer than 7 points for the remainder of the game. The Knights slowly increased their lead in the waning minutes until they made a mass substitution with a 14-point lead in the final two minutes of the game.

The Knights, now 24-8 on the season, advance to the consolation bracket championship game today at 8 a.m. RTR will face Heritage Christian Academy (22-8) with a fifth-place trophy on the line.

“We’re going to just have to play sound defense. This is game 33 of the season so, I mean, we’re pretty ready for anything we’re going to see,” Gravley said. “It’s not a lot of time to study it [game film] and it’s a small sample size, but we’re just going to have to defend and communicate, cover their shooters up, take care of dribble-penetration. Defensively, about the same things we’ve been working on all season.”

Heritage Christian defeated Goodhue 68-54 in Friday’s consolation semifinals and lost to No. 2 West Central Area 64-53 in the Class A quarterfinals on Thursday.