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Mar. 23—RAPID CITY — Victory and agony traded places on Saturday night.
This time around, it was Brandon Valley that got to enjoy the ecstasy of a Class AA state boys basketball championship. And in a reversal of roles from 2024, it was at Mitchell's expense in a 53-45 contest at the Summit Arena.
The Lynx got to experience their first state championship in six years, and it was made a little sweeter by the fact that they topped the team that made them feel the pain a year ago when Mitchell won the 2024 title by a single point.
"It was all resiliency and hard work," said Brandon Valley's Briggs Knutson, who credited Brandon Valley coach Craig Nelson for putting them in the championship position. "He pushes us all the time and never lets us rest, never lets us settle. ... You go down the list of our leaders, every one of them was just pushing hard all the time to get back here. And we got it done."
Nelson said he continued to insist to his team to stay in the game and "find a way" to win.
"It's usually defense and rebounding, but it's just dudes that are tough, dudes that step up and make plays, they're just gamers," Nelson said. "And just every game, every game, find a way."
The way on Saturday was dynamite 3-point shooting, drilling 10-of-21 3-pointers to beat Mitchell after making only six total 3s in the first two games of the state tournament.
Memories are made in March by the unsung heroes, and Brandon Valley had a few come through in a big way, led by freshman Lincoln McInerney's two 3-pointers in the third quarter. They were his only points of the tournament and part of a 9-0 punch that staggered the Kernels in a way they were never able to recover from.
"(Lincoln) making those threes totally changed the momentum. It gave us some fire," Dulaney said. "It gave us some momentum to be able to beat this type of team."
The irony hurts for Mitchell, which knocked out Sioux Falls Lincoln in the semifinals with the exact same shooting line — 10-for-21 — shooting well above their season average as a subpar 3-point shooting team.
"It's what's so hard about basketball. You define a season oftentimes by one game, when there's just so much more that needs to be said," Mitchell coach Ryker Kreutzfeldt said. "Had we made a few more shots, we'd be talking about back to back, all this ... But we lose the game, and it's disappointment, and those kids don't get the feeling of going out with a smile. They don't get to have that happy moment."
Mitchell had the lead at halftime 21-19, and the game looked like it would be a battle all the way to the final horn. The Kernels' senior center Gavin Hinker was huge in the first half with 11 points, but the Lynx clamped down on him in the final 16 minutes of play, holding him to only four points the rest of the way. Markus Talley, the Kernels' star senior guard, scored 13 points in the game, with 12 in the second half, but the Lynx kept him in check, too.
"It was just a defensive effort, and everyone played their part," Dulaney said. "Everyone made shots, everyone made stops, everyone was physical. That's what we have to do to win a game like this."
For Mitchell, it ends a three-year run driven by Talley — who won the Spirit of Su award on Saturday night as the state tournament's top senior — and a star player in rare air in Kernel history. Mitchell has won 64 games combined in the last three seasons, reaching the title game all three times but has come away with a single state title.
"We didn't get the outcome we wanted, and it sucks, I mean, it really kills, but we're all more sad that it's the end," Smith said. "We've all worked our tails off from when we were little kids to now, so it's hard to take in. I've been playing with guys like Markus (Talley) and Gavin (Hinker) my whole life, so just seeing it finally come to an end like this, it's really heartbreaking."
And the Lynx title was redemption for a program that poured a lot into the 2024 effort, came agonizingly short, and then rallied and did one game better this time around.
"It's surreal because we lost so much off of last year's team," Nelson said. "In the preseason. I don't think this group was picked to do a whole lot. It's a sum-of-the-parts-type of team, right? They buy in. They're so unselfish that it's a true team victory, these guys coming together and doing what they did."
Saturday's title game was also a novelty, the first time since Class AA basketball was created in 1986 that the same two teams have met two years in a row for a state title with two different champions.
"We both are blessed with some dang tough kids and some talented kids," Kreutzfeldt said of the Mitchell and Brandon Valley programs. "Both these games, it was just two really tough teams. Both of us the last two years can guard. We don't always score it like crazy, but we guard."
"It's crazy. It's ironic, right? It's really good basketball," Nelson said. "Mitchell's been here three years in a row. That doesn't happen very often. They've got a really good basketball team. We were fortunate to come out on top this time, but that doesn't take anything away from them."
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This time around, it was Brandon Valley that got to enjoy the ecstasy of a Class AA state boys basketball championship. And in a reversal of roles from 2024, it was at Mitchell's expense in a 53-45 contest at the Summit Arena.
The Lynx got to experience their first state championship in six years, and it was made a little sweeter by the fact that they topped the team that made them feel the pain a year ago when Mitchell won the 2024 title by a single point.
"It was all resiliency and hard work," said Brandon Valley's Briggs Knutson, who credited Brandon Valley coach Craig Nelson for putting them in the championship position. "He pushes us all the time and never lets us rest, never lets us settle. ... You go down the list of our leaders, every one of them was just pushing hard all the time to get back here. And we got it done."
Nelson said he continued to insist to his team to stay in the game and "find a way" to win.
"It's usually defense and rebounding, but it's just dudes that are tough, dudes that step up and make plays, they're just gamers," Nelson said. "And just every game, every game, find a way."
The way on Saturday was dynamite 3-point shooting, drilling 10-of-21 3-pointers to beat Mitchell after making only six total 3s in the first two games of the state tournament.
Memories are made in March by the unsung heroes, and Brandon Valley had a few come through in a big way, led by freshman Lincoln McInerney's two 3-pointers in the third quarter. They were his only points of the tournament and part of a 9-0 punch that staggered the Kernels in a way they were never able to recover from.
"(Lincoln) making those threes totally changed the momentum. It gave us some fire," Dulaney said. "It gave us some momentum to be able to beat this type of team."
The irony hurts for Mitchell, which knocked out Sioux Falls Lincoln in the semifinals with the exact same shooting line — 10-for-21 — shooting well above their season average as a subpar 3-point shooting team.
"It's what's so hard about basketball. You define a season oftentimes by one game, when there's just so much more that needs to be said," Mitchell coach Ryker Kreutzfeldt said. "Had we made a few more shots, we'd be talking about back to back, all this ... But we lose the game, and it's disappointment, and those kids don't get the feeling of going out with a smile. They don't get to have that happy moment."
Mitchell had the lead at halftime 21-19, and the game looked like it would be a battle all the way to the final horn. The Kernels' senior center Gavin Hinker was huge in the first half with 11 points, but the Lynx clamped down on him in the final 16 minutes of play, holding him to only four points the rest of the way. Markus Talley, the Kernels' star senior guard, scored 13 points in the game, with 12 in the second half, but the Lynx kept him in check, too.
"It was just a defensive effort, and everyone played their part," Dulaney said. "Everyone made shots, everyone made stops, everyone was physical. That's what we have to do to win a game like this."
For Mitchell, it ends a three-year run driven by Talley — who won the Spirit of Su award on Saturday night as the state tournament's top senior — and a star player in rare air in Kernel history. Mitchell has won 64 games combined in the last three seasons, reaching the title game all three times but has come away with a single state title.
"We didn't get the outcome we wanted, and it sucks, I mean, it really kills, but we're all more sad that it's the end," Smith said. "We've all worked our tails off from when we were little kids to now, so it's hard to take in. I've been playing with guys like Markus (Talley) and Gavin (Hinker) my whole life, so just seeing it finally come to an end like this, it's really heartbreaking."
And the Lynx title was redemption for a program that poured a lot into the 2024 effort, came agonizingly short, and then rallied and did one game better this time around.
"It's surreal because we lost so much off of last year's team," Nelson said. "In the preseason. I don't think this group was picked to do a whole lot. It's a sum-of-the-parts-type of team, right? They buy in. They're so unselfish that it's a true team victory, these guys coming together and doing what they did."
Saturday's title game was also a novelty, the first time since Class AA basketball was created in 1986 that the same two teams have met two years in a row for a state title with two different champions.
"We both are blessed with some dang tough kids and some talented kids," Kreutzfeldt said of the Mitchell and Brandon Valley programs. "Both these games, it was just two really tough teams. Both of us the last two years can guard. We don't always score it like crazy, but we guard."
"It's crazy. It's ironic, right? It's really good basketball," Nelson said. "Mitchell's been here three years in a row. That doesn't happen very often. They've got a really good basketball team. We were fortunate to come out on top this time, but that doesn't take anything away from them."
Continue reading...
