BRANDON — The season ended for the Brookings Bobcats after a 65-49 loss to Brandon Valley in the Class AA SoDak 16 on Friday night, but the defeat carried some perspective.
The Bobcats went from a team that lost seven straight games in January to one that put themselves one win away from the state tournament. Although they came up short of their goal, the team that took the court on Friday night was much different than the one from the beginning of the year and it spawned plenty of optimism heading into the offseason.
“It’s been different than it’s been in the past,” Brookings head coach Mitch McLagan said. “When we showed up tonight, we had 20 kids in that locker room that truly believed they were going to come in and win a game tonight. To be in that situation with the way our season started, hats off to our kids, because they kept showing up.”
The adversity came early after Brookings dropped its first three games of the season before winning back-to-back games against Douglas and Yankton. The new calendar year wasn’t kind to the Bobcats as they lost their next seven games and didn’t pick up their first January win until a victory at Sioux Falls Washington on Jan. 30.
But the win over the Warriors gave confidence to a young roster and kick-started a stretch where Brookings won five of their next seven games to close the season and earn a spot in the SoDak 16.
“We kept getting better and better,” McLagan said. “It would have been easy earlier in the year for our kids to lay down but I was super proud of what we were able to do.”
That improvement showed early in Friday’s game as utilized Tess Burns for a couple of baskets in the post and played to a 6-6 tie midway through the first quarter.
After calling a timeout, Brandon Valley turned up its intensity on defense and created turnovers and easy baskets that fueled a 14-4 run and a 20-10 lead at the end of the first quarter.
The run proved to be the separation the Lynx led 36-20 at halftime and 51-33 at the end of the third quarter. With a balanced scoring attack, the Lynx used 21 points from Alyvia Padgett, 16 points from Kennedi Deckert and 14 points from Ava Kellenberger to score the victory and advance to next week’s Class AA state tournament in Sioux Falls.
But even in defeat, there were some positives for the Bobcats to dwell on — especially from their young players.
Macy Even capped a strong sophomore season with a team-high 15 points and Burns finished with 12 points. With Logan Smidt had eight points and Amari Ward had seven points it highlighted a young nucleus that will lose seniors Brinleigh Mack and Brooklyn Benthin to graduation this spring but also has the potential for a better start and a better draw in the SoDak 16 next season.
“When you struggle at the beginning of the year, you put yourself in a bad spot when it comes to the SoDak 16,” McLagan said. “We had a lot of kids get experience this year but we’ve got to get [where Brandon Valley is].”
McLagan went on to say that he believes this group can make the state tournament and the expectations will be higher next season. But that didn’t take the sting out of losing to the Lynx on Friday night – even if the Bobcats believe there are brighter days ahead.
“We’re very optimistic but it’s just hard to think about right now,” McLagan said. “I know our locker room took [the loss] tough but with the youth we have, I know we’re going to have a bunch of kids that want to play basketball. We’re going to have a good summer and there’s a lot of optimism going forward with what we want to do.”
