Photo by Jake McNeill The Minneota boys basketball team lines up to receive their Section 3A North runner-up medals after falling to Central Minnesota Christian in the subsection championship game at Southwest Minnesota State’s R/A Facility on Saturday night.

MARSHALL — Central Minnesota Christian’s hot shooting night was too much for the Minneota boys basketball team to overcome on Saturday as the Bluejays ended the Vikings’ season with a 72-60 loss in the Section 3A North championship game on Saturday night.

Minneota jumped out to an early 4-0 lead behind a pair of Max Rost free throws and a Lucas Rybinski up-and-under. That turned out to be the last lead the Vikings would have on the night.

Minneota finishes its season at 22-8, a sizeable improvement from its 8-17 mark the season before.

“It took a lot of hard work, a lot of time. We know where we want this program to be in the future and this is a start,” Rost said. “This is a step. Hopefully, the younger kids see that. Minneota’s more of a football school, that’s what it’s known as, so we wanted to get that basketball culture going and we think we took a big step this year.”

The Bluejays took advantage of a four-minute Minneota scoring drought to go on a 10-0 run to seize the lead.

The Vikings called a timeout to try to regroup and Ryan Dalager promptly ended the run with a 3-pointer. Ashton Weiberdink responded with a pair of free throws and a layup for the Bluejays but a Rost hook shot, a Lincoln Jerzak leaner after forcing a CMC turnover and a Rost 3-pointer tied the game right back up at 14-14 with 10 minutes to play.

Just when it seemed like Minneota was poised to get back in the game, Weiberdink caught fire again with a pair of tough 3-pointers broken up by a Drew Duinnick layup. Sawyer DeSmet ended another three-minute scoring drought for the Vikings with a basket in close but Micah Asaka came right back with another 3-pointer to give the Bluejays a 25-16 lead, prompting Minneota’s second timeout of the half with 6:52 to play.

DeSmet and Dalager led Minneota to a 39-33 advantage on the glass with 13 rebounds each. Dalager dominated the defensive glass with a game-high 11 boards while DeSmet’s nine offensive rebounds equalled CMC’s team total. Rost also had five offensive rebounds to give Minneota a team total of 21. Nathan Wieberdink led the Vikings on the glass with nine rebounds while Logan Roelefs added another seven.

Weiberdink was hot all night long. He finished the night with a team-high 23 points for the Bluejays on 7 of 11 shooting from long range. Duinnick also added another 17 points for CMC.

Minneota head coach Chad Johnston said that they knew going into the game that Weiberdink was a player that could shoot and he wouldn’t have been surprised if he hit three or four 3-pointers in the game, but the volume and efficiency Weiberdink stepped up and executed at caught Minneota slightly off guard.

“For him to go off the way he did was huge,” Johnston said. “When they shoot 54% from the 3-point line and we shoot 18 [percent], that’s a huge discrepancy in the score and that’s credit to them. They hit the shots when they needed to. We were trying to get our kids not to come off [Weiberdink], stay tight, stay tight, and we got caught coming underneath. When a kid starts feeling it and stroking it, they just keep going and he just caught it in rhythm, shot it and they kept going in for him. So credit to him, he did a nice job.”

While it wasn’t enough for the win, Rost was right there matching Weiberdink’s volume every step of the way. In his final game as a Viking, Rost scored 24 points on 11 of 13 shooting from the free-throw line. He was also the only Viking other than Dalager to make a 3-pointer in the game. Dalager went 3 of 9 from beyond the arc to tie DeSmet with 11 points.

“That’s what Max does. He’s the senior leader out there,” Johnston said. He added that there were points that Rost may have forced his shots a bit, but that those shots weren’t necessarily a bad thing. “It’s his drive, that, ‘I’m going to put the team on my shoulder if I need to,’ and he did that throughout the whole game. I’m extremely proud of what he’s done. He’s extremely proud of what he’s done all season long for us.”

Weiberdink and Duinnick hit another pair of 3-pointers to give Minneota its first double-digit lead of the day and, moments later, Asaka made a third 3-pointer to give the Bluejays their largest lead of the first half, 34-18. Minneota was able to make a dent in the lead but Duinnick made two out of three free throws after being fouled beyond the arc with 2.3 seconds remaining, making the Bluejays’ advantage 38-26 at the break.

Johnston said that the team fell behind because it started to rush its offense at points as the first half progressed and that the focus coming out of the locker room was patience.

“This isn’t going to happen just like that. We have to commit to the long haul,” Johnston said. “We’ve got a whole half to work ourselves back in… We felt like we hit a little bit of a panic button there for a while, we forced some things, so I think going into the second half we settled a little bit better and executed a little bit better.”

Dalager started the second half hot, drilling a 3-pointer just six seconds into the half and making another on the next Minneota possession, cutting the deficit to 6 points and forcing a CMC timeout.

While the Vikings held CMC scoreless for the first three minutes of the second half, Minneota was unable to score any more points before Logan Roelefs put the Bluejays on the board with a layup. On CMC’s next possession, a Bluejay push on a Minneota player during a loose ball went uncalled and Duinnick took advantage. He recovered the ball, hoisted up a 3-pointer and made the shot while drawing the foul for a 4-point play to sap the energy out of the Minneota sideline.

The Bluejays extended their lead to as many as 14 points when the Vikings started to lock in. Rybinski beat a defender with a head fake before knocking down a pull-up jumper and Max Rost converted an and-1 to cut the deficit to single digits. He also spun into a basket on the next trip down the floor but Weiberdink answered with a 3-pointer to make the Bluejays’ lead 54-44 with nine minutes remaining.

A DeSmet putback and a Jerzak pull-up cut the deficit down to 6 points and, after a Roelefs bucket, Jerzak knocked down another layup and Rost hit a pair of free throws to make it a 56-52 game with 6:38 to play. The foul that gave Rost the free throws was CMC center Ryan Harrington’s fourth of the game but the Vikings were unable to force him to foul out.

The Vikings remained within striking distance, trailing 64-60 with 2:40 to play. Yet, they lost control from there. Elijah Gerdes knocked down a 3-pointer to make it a 7-point game for the Bluejays. Rost was called for a foul on what would have been a great inbound steal but Rybinski dived to make the hustle play on CMC’s next attempt. Yet, the Vikings weren’t able to convert the turnover into points.

“Lucas has done it all year long, we’ve kind of been trying to get everybody else to buy into it, and I think you saw it tonight,” Johnston said of his team’s hustle plays. “I had seniors on the ground, realizing that this is it. There’s no reason not to lay it on the line. We could have easily kind of just bucked in and kind of folded up but we fought to the very, very end. We got some steals at the end and if we can capitalize on them, maybe have a shot fall, it’s a whole different ball game.”

The Vikings finished the night with a 10-16 advantage in the turnover battle. Dalader led Minneota with three steals while Rybinski added another two. Dalager’s six steals with two turnovers tied him with Asaka, who had six steals and one turnover for the Bluejays. Duinnick also had five turnover-free assists.

Minneota tried to shoot its way back into the game but, as the shots clanked off the rim, they were forced to play the free-throw game. The Bluejays held strong and kept Minneota scoreless for the final two minutes and change, hanging on for the victory.

The win marked the second time this season Minneota and CMC had matched up after the Bluejays defeated the Vikings 65-52 in Minneota back on Jan. 18. Duinnick finished the night with 22 points to lead the Bluejays to victory.

Beyond the Vikings’ increase in wins compared to last year, they showed growth as the year went on. The Vikings nearly toppled Dawson-Boyd in the Camden Conference championship game before finishing the job with a 61-57 win over the No. 2 team in Class A in the Section 3A North semifinals.

“It was fun. We had a lot of ups and downs and when we were up, we were up there,” DeSmet said. “It was fun to beat Dawson like that, and then sometimes it doesn’t go your way.”

Rost, Dalager, Sheik, DeSmet and Grant Anderson are all graduating after this season.

“I’m extremely excited and happy for them,” Johnston said. “You always start the season off with hopes and dreams and I think this group was obviously a little disappointed in what we did last year. I think they were expecting some good things but if we honestly said to ourselves that we would’ve been sitting in the subsection championship game, I would have though, well, we’ve got a long way to go. Now, as the season progressed, I felt like we could be there but we had to prove that first throughout the season and I thought our kids did a wonderful job. Going from eight wins to 20-plus wins is a good turnaround in one year.”