BOYS BASKETBALL: Red Lake beats Laporte 87-45

BEMIDJI - Red Lake's quest to repeat as Section 8A champions and return to the Minnesota Class A tournament encountered an early hiccup against eighth-seeded Laporte.

The Wildcats tried to frustrate the Warriors in the first half of Thursday's tournament game at Bemidji State, coming back each and every time Red Lake looked like they would pull away. The Warriors led just 33-21 at halftime.

"They worked hard and they didn't turn over the ball in the first half," Red Lake head coach Roger White said of the Wildcats. "That makes a big difference with us in the amount of transition we like to play. They took care of the ball really well and hung tough."

But Red Lake's speedy transition game proved to be too much for the Wildcats, as the Warriors pulled away in the second half to win 87-45.

Red Lake (20-5) advances to the semifinals of the Sub-Section 8A East tournament, scheduled for Saturday at noon in Thief River Falls. They'll take on fourth-seeded Mahnomen (16-9), who beat Walker-Hackensack-Akeley in the late game on Thursday at BSU.

"They're a very good basketball team," Laporte head coach Amos Bessler said. "Most of the time, the better basketball team wins. We were able to stick with them and hang in there, be a little hindrance toward them but I'm proud of my guys and the way they handled themselves tonight."

Laporte (10-17) came out firing behind Austin Moss' 11 first-half points. The Wildcats scored the first points of the game but let the Warriors pull away in the first five minutes. With 10 minutes to go Red Lake was up 17-8, but the Wildcats scored nine points in two minutes - seven of them from Moss and two by Quintin Nelson - to pull even at 17-all with seven minutes to go.

"We maybe had a little bit of jitters playing here for the first time," White said of his team's early struggles.

However, the Warriors gave themselves some breathing room before halftime, going on a 16-4 run to close out the first half.

The balanced Warriors had four players with six points at halftime - Rob McLain, James Jourdain, Russell Kingbird and Jeremy Martin.

Although Moss hurt his knee at the end of the first half, he returned and despite being hobbled kicked off the second half with a three-pointer to cut Red Lake's lead back to single digits, 33-24.

However, Red Lake's Tyrell Patterson answered with two threes to make it 39-26.

The score never again got to single digits.

"We were able to kind of settle down at halftime and we came out and played a little more aggressive on defense, outrebounded them and were able to get out into transition a lot better," White said.

The closest Laporte got again was 11 points - 45-34 - with 11:40 to go. But the Wildcats scored just 11 more points down the stretch.

"We got outrebounded in the second half," Bessler said. "We did a good job of taking what they do away and getting back in transition in the first half, but the second half we didn't do that as well. But with 11 minutes left we were 11 points down. We couldn't close it out."

Red Lake had four players with double digits - of the aforementioned four who had six points at halftime, McClain led the way with 19 at the end of the game.

"All year we've been sharing the ball really well," White said. "We have a good team mentaltiuy with the guys. As long as somebody scores we score."

Moss led Laporte with 17 points to end his high school career; he finished as the Wildcats' all-time leading scorer with 2,000 career points.

Red Lake 87, Laporte 45

Laporte (45) - Jefferson 0 0-0 0; Langaas 0 0-2 0; Johonnsen 0 0-0 0; Kline 4 0-0 8; Moss 7 1-1 17; Bialke 1 0-0 2; Clyde 0 0-0 0; Hoffman 2 3-3 7; Hoffman 5 0-0 10; Schommer 0 0-0 0; Klimke 0 0-0 0. Totals 19 4-6 45.

Red Lake (87) - Cook 1 0-0 3; McClain 8 0-1 16; Chaboyea 1 2-2 4; Patterson 3 0-0 9; Needham 1 0-0 2; R.Beaulieu 0 0-0 0; Jourdain 3 0-0 6; Spears 9 90 9; R.Kingbird 4 2-2 13; Whitefeather 1 0-0 2; M.Kingbird 2 1-2 5; A.Beaulieu 2 0-0 5; Martin 9 0-3 18; Norris 0 0-0 0; Johnson 1 0-0 2. Totals 36 5-10 87

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