BROOKINGS – After hanging with Harrisburg for the first quarter, the Tigers flexed their muscles in the second quarter – both from the interior and exterior – and put away the Bobcats, 61-49 on Saturday afternoon.

Brookings closed the regular season with a 3-16 mark, 2-11 in the ESD, but will get an opportunity to put all that aside and find an upset win in the SoDak 16.

The Bobcats trailed by seven at the midpoint of the first quarter after Brock Longville picked up his second foul, and coupled with a thunderous dunk from Harrisburg’s Hayden Muirhead, those factors combined could’ve been a spark to the Tiger offense.

But the Bobcats cut the lead to two on a Nick Schefers trey and then five straight points from Longville’s sub, Max Struck, before the Tigers added a bucket ahead of the horn to lead by four.

Longville picked up his third foul just 55 seconds into the second quarter and the Tigers made Brookings pay, steadily increasing the lead while keeping a Bobcat offense at bay.

A 23-point second quarter, countered from the Bobcats with only eight, and Harrisburg opened up a 19-point cushion at the half, 41-22.

Harrisburg connected on 5-of-11 from long range and 10-of-11 at the line in the first half, getting open looks when the Bobcats tried to cover their posts, and getting to the free-throw line when those post-touches resulted in fouls.

Brookings could only muster five attempts from the charity stripe and seven from beyond the arc in the first half, making three of each, a contributing factor to the 19-point halftime deficit.

And while the Bobcats won both the third and fourth quarter, the first-half hole was too large to climb out from.

Regardless, head coach Travis Engebretson was pleased with the second-half effort.

“We got into a pretty good groove in the second half and scored some points, but we’ve still got to do a better job moving,” he said. “Offensively, we were pretty pleased – 49 points. And for a lot of teams out there they probably wouldn’t take that, but that’s kinda where we’re at.”

Those 49 points represent the third-highest scoring output for the season for the Bobcats, a product of a solid week of practice according to the coach.

“This week in practice, you could tell the tempo was better. A lot of what you saw today is the product of having good practices, and that’s a big carryover.”

Schefers led all scorers with 14 points including 4-of-8 from deep. Henry Hammrich added eight points, while Casey Woodall, Jack Even and Struck each tallied five.

Blaze Lubbers scored 13 for Harrisburg, while Conner Geddes added ten.

BOYS’ BASKETBALL

• Clark/Willow Lake 51, Arlington 44

The Cyclones led throughout – 17-11 after a quarter, 30-22 at halftime and 42-31 through three.

Trey Huber finished with 13 points and eight rebounds. Kaleb Marx posted a double-double of 11 points and 14 rebounds. Renner Uecker chipped in with 11 points and seven boards.

The Cardinals got 17 points and six rebounds from Ryker Erstad. Chris Wallace had 11 markers and seven boards.

Arlington finished the regular season with an 8-12 record.