Staff Photo: Travis Rosenau Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s Brennan Bendix (2) plays Braxton Dudgeon (10) and Charlie Jengler (back, 3) of Lake Crystal Wellcomme Memorial at a South Central Conference Boys Basketball game at MVL High School. You’ll be shot by passing.
NEWULM – One of Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s biggest strengths has become one of the late-term weaknesses of the South Central Conference Boys basketball game on Thursday night.
The Chargers’ defense and rebound kept them ahead of them throughout the majority of the game, but the Knights forced overtime and came back to an 80-77 overtime victory to delay their shots.
“Our defense took a lead for us…and we rebounded.” said MVL head coach Craig Morgan. “We then didn’t rebound towards the end of the game either.”
Blake Sexton led the Chargers with 20 points, with Connor Board scoring 19 points and Brennan Bendix with 17 points. Pearson Brow and Luke Merces each had three blocks.
LCWM was led by Charlie Jenglar’s game-high 24 points and 13 rebounds, with Braden Matthews 16 points and 6-9 sophomore Carter Lowis finishing 12 with a bucket working overtime.
Lowis scored all his points in the second half, and his end was clearly his biggest.
“He basically got them all in the second half with rebounds.” Morgan said of Lowyth. “We couldn’t rebound either, but when we had the shot, we didn’t rebound on free throws and we had the second shot, which wasn’t good.”
The Chargers also struggled at the foul line, moving on to 10 of the 23.
The Chargers led at 12 midway through the second half, with the Knights slowing to change things, grabbing a 12-0 run, finishing at Jack Goringer’s corner 3, tied at 58-All, 5:04 left forces an MVL timeout.
Matthew 3 in the final minute of regulation had a bucket of Lowis in the bottom left that the LCWM went down to 69-67, with the second left tied it and sent it into overtime. After the Knights scored first in overtime, the Bendix hit a 3 to give the MVL a 72-71 lead. However, that was the last time the Chargers took the lead as the Knights ran 6-0 to lead 77-72 in the final minute of overtime.
The chip-in by Sexton has now turned the charger 79-77.
After Matthews was fouled and got a pair of double bonus free throws with 1.5 seconds remaining, he sunk the first one and missed the second one. Sexton pulled on the rebound, but the full-court heave near him hit a retractable gym split curtain that hangs over the midcoat over time.
The Chargers got their first lead of the game with Sexton’s internal bucket, but the Knights answered with paint and foul lines and quickly jumped 8-3. The Chargers then ran 10-0, leading 13-8, with the board contributing eight points and a three-second pair during the run.
After the Knights reduced the deficit to 13-12, the board was hit again for three seconds, giving the MVL a 19-12 lead, forcing the opening half to a timeout for LCWM with 10:06 left .
The Chargers extended their lead to 29-19 after a three by Sexton. Before Eric Sorenson found Owen Burkholz and found Owen Birkholz on the 34-22 MVL lead, Bendix got the MVL three back, half the remaining LCWM timeout at 4:08.
The Knights then returned the deficit to 5, but the board’s layup made the MVL 43-35 at halftime.
The board finished the first half with 17 points, but he cooled a bit after a hot start and tried to make more passes in the second half.
“I want him to shoot him when he’s open, but you don’t want him to force things.” Morgan said of the board. “Then when he got 14, all of a sudden he started to force it and the shot was short, so we had to take him with us to give him a rest.
The Chargers also wrapped more of the ball in the second half, rather than relying on the three of them.
The Knights got a boost from Braxton Dudgeon and began the second half in the form of consecutive layups to Trail 43-39. In one moment with Dodgeon, the Order went 47-44.
A 9-0 run followed for the Chargers to give a 56-44 lead.
After Goeringer tied up a 58, Sorenson ran towards the hoop and converted the MVL to go back from the timeout. A free throw from Sexton extended the lead to 62-58.
The Knights got their final shot of the half and tied it together and sent it to the OT, where they finished strong for the victory.
LCWM moved 14-7 overall and 6-2 overall in the conference with the victory, while the MVL fell to 11-11 overall and 3-5 overall in the conference.
MVL will travel to St. Clair on Tuesday for another conference game.
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