VOLGA – Just like their first game of the Big East Conference Tournament, the Sioux Valley boys’ basketball team cruised to a 71-42 victory over Parker Saturday in the championship game.
The Cossacks beat Chester Area 65-20 Thursday night in the quarterfinals and topped McCook Central/Montrose in the semifinals 80-64 Friday night. Sioux Valley head coach Bill Vincent said he thought his team got out to a lot better start against Parker then they did in the semifinals.
“Being at home helped a little bit. We were a little slow out of the gates [against MCM], so we talked about that. … Parker did a nice job of continuing to coach it up and come at us and prepare themselves for down the road because we will meet again in the regular season of the Big East. I just thought our guys were excited and just wanted to get back out here after slipping to Parker in last year’s Big East championship game,” Vincent said.
Sioux Valley jumped out to a 17-6 lead in the first quarter and then blew the game open in the second quarter. The Cossacks outscored the Pheasants 27-14 in the second. The game was a lot more even in the second half as Sioux Valley only outscored Parker 27-22.
The Cossacks had four players score in double figures with Max Nielson leading the way. The senior had 16 points, 10 assists and four steals. Ryan Schuster had 16 points, six steals and five rebounds. Oliver Vincent had 14 points and Lane VanderWal had 10 points and four rebounds.
“It’s kind of amazing that five of our guys average in double figures this season and a sixth guy is right there and the seventh guy is putting up some good numbers as well.
There’s going to be three or four guys [in double figures] each night, you just don’t know who those three or four are going to be. So that’s neat and it makes it tougher to guard and things,” Vincent said.
Sioux Valley forced 21 turnovers on the night and had 16 steals. Vincent said his team has a lot of guys with good anticipation and that is what leads to the steals.
“When we’re communicating and the guys are out there getting their reads, we get a lot of tipped passes and deflections, which is something we talk about in stat and want our kids to be good at. We think our defense can lead to some offense. We think in the past years we’ve done some good things offensively and in order to do that we have improve on that we need to get some things generated defensively as well,” Vincent said.
The Cossacks shot 56.6% from the field and were 5-21 from three. They held the Pheasants to 40% shooting from the field and 4-13 from three. Sioux Valley outrebounded Parker 25-22 on the night. They had 22 assists and only eight turnovers.
The Pheasants were led by Davin Fuller who had 11 points and five rebounds. Carter Robertson had eight points and six rebounds. Matt Van Vliet had 10 points.
Even though the Cossacks are undefeated, Vincent said there is a lot of stuff his team still needs to improve on.
“We want to get better on the glass and that’s going to be a chore for us consistently. We want to continue to have our turnovers get lower and lower each game as the season goes on and that’s starting to happen and we know that we have to keep the ball moving on offense,” Vincent said.
Up next, Sioux Valley will travel to Hayti on Tuesday to take on Hamlin.
SIOUX VALLEY 71, PARKER 42
Parker (7-2)
Davin Fuller 4-8 2-2 11, Matt Van Vliet 4-9 0-0 10, Carter Robertson 4-7 0-0 8, Cole Jurgens 2-3 0-0 5, Kaden Pesicka 2-11 0-3 4, Colby Olson 1-1 0-0 2, Landri Holzwarth 1-3 0-0 2, Jaivyn 0-0 0-0 0, Jace Ullerich 0-0 0-0 0, Jace Bridges 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 18-45 2-2 42.
Sioux Valley (8-0)
Max Nielson 5-9 4-5 16, Ryan Schuster 8-15 0-2 16, Oliver Vincent 6-8 2-3 14, Lane VanderWal 5-7 0-0 10, Kelton Vincent 3-4 2-3 9, Parker Puetz 2-4 0-0 4, Hayden Ruesink 1-4 0-0 2, Colby Gatzke 0-1 0-0 0, Jaxton Schiller 0-1 0-0 0, Patrick Carey 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 30-53 6-10 71.
Sioux Valley 17 27 14 13
Parker 6 14 12 10
Halftime – 44-20 SV. 3-point field goals – P 4-13 (Jurgens 1-1, Van Vliet 2-4, Fuller 1-2, Pesicka 0-3, Bridges 0-2, Robertson 0-1), SV 5-21 (O. Vincent 2-3, K. Vincent 1-2, Nielson 2-6, Schuster 0-5, Puetz 0-2, Gatzke 0-1, Schiller 0-1, Ruesink 0-1). Rebounds – P 22, SV 25. Assists – P 11, SV 22. Steals – P 4, SV 16. Blocks – P 1, SV 1. Turnvers – P 21, SV 8. Total fouls – P 9, SV 4. Technical fouls – none.
Third Place
• Flandreau 66, McCoo Central/Montrose 56
The Fliers won the third place game after having a good third quarter.
Flandreau was leading 34-31 at halftime and outscored the Figthing Cougars 21-10 in the third. MCM fought back and outscored Flandreau 15-11 in the final quarter, but dug themselves too big of a hole.
Tash Lunday led the Fliers with 27 points, 10 rebounds and four assists. Alex Anderson had 19 points.
The Fighting Cougars were led by Isaac McCormic who had 18 points. Kolton Lindstrom had 12 points and Gavin Gordon had 10.
