Photo by Jake McNeill: Minneota guard Evan Jerzak (3) attempts a layup in the paint during the first half of a non-conference boys basketball game against Luverne, Friday in Minneota.

MINNEOTA — The size and athleticism of the Luverne Cardinals were too much for the Minneota boys basketball team to contain in its final game of the regular season Friday night. The Cardinals got off to a hot start and never looked back, handing Minneota an 83-67 loss to close out the regular season.

“They [Minneota] didn’t give up. They just kept fighting, kept battling, kept going at it,” Minneota head coach Chad Johnston said. “We could have easily folded… kind of tucked our tails, but they kept fighting. We made a little bit of a run to get within decent proximity of them, and then they came back with another nice little run … It was a game of runs, but we just got ourselves down too early, too quick.”

Minneota played Luverne tight in the first half except for the first three and last three minutes. The Cardinals outscored the Vikings 12-2 in the game’s opening minutes, with a pair of free throws giving Minneota its lone points.

Down the final stretch of the half, Luverne put together a 12-0 run to go into halftime up 50-30 behind Coy Thone, Jaydon Johnson and Darius Solo each scoring 13 or more points. The Vikings were led by 8 points apiece from Tristen Sussner and Jase Sorensen.

After a slow start to the game, Minneota started to put things together three minutes in. Sorensen knocked down a corner 3 to give the Vikings their first field goal of the night and Ian Myhre drained a pair of free throws to cut the gap to 5.

After struggling in a zone defense early, the Vikings started running defensive sets that they hadn’t practiced at all over the course of the season, Johnston said. The fresh look on the defensive end helped keep the Cardinals at bay for a while, though Luverne got hot late in the half to regain momentum.

Despite being at a height disadvantage, the Vikings more than held their own on the glass. Minneota built up a 37-34 rebounding advantage in the night, including a 14-8 edge on the offensive boards. Sussner led the team with 11 total and four offensive rebounds, and Evan Jerzak contributed another three offensive and two defensive boards. Landon Esping also finished with seven total rebounds on the night.

Sussner was also the Vikings’ offensive leader with 20 points on 7 of 17 shooting with a pair of 3-pointers, and he tied Sorensen with a team-high four assists. Sorensen and Johnston chipped in 14 and 12, respectively, along with three steals for Johnston.

Luverne brought its lead back to 11 before the Vikings trimmed it back down to 8, but a pair of alley-oop dunks by Thone helped the Cardinals regain momentum as they heated up again late.

Coming out of the locker room, Luverne hadn’t lost a step. The Cardinals held the Vikings scoreless for the first three-and-a-half minutes of the second half, though a handful of missed layups limited to four points over the opening stretch.

Minneota wasn’t able to cut into the deficit from there, trailing by as many as 25 points. The VIkings cut it back down to as few as 12 but never got within striking distance.

Minneota switched to man-to-man defense in the second half in an effort to respond to Luverne’s physical play. Coach Johnston said that matching the Cardinals’ physicality was a point of emphasis heading into the game, adding that he felt his team did a good job at responding to it later in the game even though it took some time to adjust.

All five of Luverne’s starters finished scoring in double figures, including 24 points from Johnson and 22 from Thone. Johnson also grabbed 12 rebounds on the night.

Minneota wraps up its regular season with an 8-18 record and now awaits seeding for the Section 3A tournament. While the Vikings haven’t been in the win column as often as they’d like to be, many of their losses came in games that could have gone either way, whether it was the three games decided by one possession or others where they were competitive throughout but fell short down the stretch.

“We’ve had too many games this year that we haven’t been able to seal the deal. In my mind, we could easily be a 12, 13, 14-win team,” coach Johnston said. “Obviously we’re not, we couldn’t figure out how to win those games, but … We’ve got to go into the postseason with a lot of confidence.”

The postseason will begin on Thursday with the play-in round at the site of the high seed on Thursday at 7 p.m., and the North subsection quarterfinals will be played at Montevideo High School on Saturday starting at 11 a.m.

“I think at this point in time, we’ll be playing in the pigtail game on Thursday night, so we’ve got to go in with a lot of confidence,” coach Johnston said. “We’ve been proving that we can get beaten by anybody in the pigtail game. All those teams we’ve seen, we either beat them or got beat by them, so just have to go in confidence, know that we play teams like this strong… and go play our best ball.”