Photo by Jake McNeill: Dawson-Boyd forward Brayson Boike dribbles down the court during a boys basketball game against Lakeview in Cottonwood on Jan. 12. The Blackjacks defeated the Lakers 86-51. Boike averaged 25.8 points, 11.5 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 2.0 blocks per game this year to earn title of Independent Boys Basketball Player of the Year.

GLUEK — It’s never easy to defend a 6-foot-7 forward in high school. That’s particularly true for Class A schools, which the Minnesota State High School League categorizes as schools with an enrollment of 210 or fewer students. So if Dawson-Boyd’s Brayson Boike decided to rely on his size to dominate, it would have been understandable. Instead, the junior standout continued to improve as a three-level scorer, leading the Blackjacks to a No. 2 ranking in Class A for the bulk of the season and earning a selection as the Independent’s Player of the Year.

There was never a period of time in which Boike was a slouch by any stretch of the imagination. Still, his growth and improvement remain impressive. Boike averaged 16.3 points per game as a freshman, made the jump up to 20.1 points and 9.1 rebounds per game as a sophomore, and made an even larger jump to 25.8 points per game, 11.5 rebounds per game and a pair of steals during his junior season. His 4.1 assists per game were also second among Dawson-Boyd players behind Gunner Liebl’s 4.2.

“Just his passing and his basketball IQ, he looks to get other people easy shots,” Brayson’s father, Jason Boike, said when asked about the area he’s noticed the most improvement from his son. “Growing up with his class all the time, we’re always like, you can get somebody else something good here… He could probably shoot way more than he does a lot of games but he likes to get other guys involved and gets enjoyment out of getting somebody else a layup or an easy shot.”

Boike grew up surrounded by athletes. His father Jason was a standout basketball player for Northern State, earning Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference All-Conference First-team honors in 1990. His three brothers — Bailey, Brady and Bentley — each played high school basketball. Bailey played college basketball for Hamline while Brady and Bentley each went on to play college football for Augustana.

“I’ve played as long as I can remember… probably by early elementary school was when I first started wanting to go out and work on shooting,” Brayson said, adding that his father was one of his early influences in working toward becoming as versatile a player as he is today.

One of the things that makes Brayson the player he is, Jason said, is that he’s taken something from each of his brothers. Between Bailey’s athleticism, Brady’s basketball IQ and feel for the game and Bentley’s natural strength.

“He kind of got the best parts of all three of them,” Jason said.

Boike’s basketball talent has translated beyond his play on the court. In addition to being a star forward in basketball season and wide receiver in football season, his athleticism has led him to runner-up finishes in the long jump and triple jump at the Class A state meet in his sophomore year.

“I’m from a small school so I like to do three sports because otherwise, you don’t have enough [athletes] for a team sometimes,” Boike said, adding that the fact that track and field season helps with his development as a basketball player also contributes to his decision to compete.

Boike was a freshman when he got his first college basketball offer from Augustana. Since then, he’s drawn the attention of Division I scouts from as far as Rhode Island.

In part, Boike’s draw has come from his ability to make a splash as an individual player. On Feb. 13, Boike scored 25 points in an 80-36 win over Ortonville. He shot 11 of 14 from the field that night. The real accomplishment, however, was that he broke Michael Lee’s program record of 1,678 career points. Boike still had the remainder of his junior year and has an entire senior season ahead of him to push that record even further.

“I actually had no idea, I don’t think anybody did except for a few people,” Boike said of the accomplishment. “It’s definitely an honor, like the hard work’s starting to pay off a little bit. But I still want to win that state championship. That’s my main thing I’m thinking about right now.”

Dawson-Boyd has been knocking on the door during Boike’s tenure with the team but is yet to get over the hump. They reached the subsection championship Boike’s freshman year, falling to Central Minnesota Christian, and reached the section championship the next year, where they fell to Russell-Tyler-Ruthton. The Blackjacks had defeated RTR earlier in the season in the Camden Conference Championship, handing the would-be state champions their only loss of the season.

“[The conference championship game] was a crazy atmosphere, probably one of the best games I’ve ever played in. But it was tough to lose to them after knowing you can beat them,” Boike said. “I don’t want that to happen again, so whenever I had a day that I didn’t want to go and work out, I always thought of that and how that made me feel. That always pushed me.”

Again, Boike led the team to another leap. They started the season ranked top 5 in the state and soared up to No. 2 shortly thereafter, where they spent much of the year.

Since his freshman year, Boike said he’s felt embraced by the team. Still, leadership is something he said he made a point of working on this year. While Boike is the focal point of the offense, he still tries to lead by making it about the group rather than himself.

“When we play together, we’re a really good team. Then in some games, we get kind of stagnant, the ball doesn’t move as quick, don’t get as many ball reversals and then things kind of go downhill from there,” Boike said.

The Blackjacks had just two losses during the regular season, heading into the section tournament at 24-2. Their only losses came against rival Montevideo and Castlewood, who finished third in the South Dakota Class B state tournament.

While they dominated most of their games, Minneota gave them problems throughout the regular season. Dawson-Boyd eked out a 58-53 win over the Vikings in the Camden Conference championship but it remained a surprise to many when Minneota ended Dawson-Boyd’s season with a 61-57 loss in the subsection semifinals.

“He just kind of seemed frustrated and disappointed with the game, but he looked at it and just analyzed it to see what we as a team needed to do to get better,” Jason said of how Brayson processed the loss.

“We let the pressure get to us. You can tell that we were making simple mistakes that we normally never make, but that just comes with experience,” Brayson said. “Personally, I’m just improving my game so I can make that extra shot so it doesn’t get forced to overtime.

The Blackjacks had been on deep runs in Boike’s freshman and sophomore years. While Boike and Drew Hjelmeland — the Blackjacks’ other 6-foot-6 sharpshooter — are both juniors and had been able to provide leadership, the team still didn’t have a single senior on its roster. While the inexperience cost them this time, returning that full roster again is a nightmare for Dawson-Boyd opponents.

Boike has racked up just about as many individual accolades and accomplishments as a junior can. Still, as Dawson-Boyd (two towns with a combined population under 2,000 people) continue to draw eyeballs from across the state due to Boike’s electric play, the only honor he’s focused on adding to his trophy case is a state title.

“I just feel like our community deserves it,” Boike said when asked why the championship is so important to him. “They support us like crazy. They’re at every game, no matter where it is. So it’s for the community more than anything.”

Boike has certainly done as much to put Dawson-Boyd on the map as the community could ever ask. With another year to play for the Player of the Year, Boike and the Blackjacks will likely only continue to grow.