Buried by threes
The No. 1 seed Blue Earth Area Buccaneer boys basketball team ran into a big problem on Wednesday night in the opening round of the Section 2A West Tournament.
That problem was the 3-pointers put up by the No. 8 seed LeSueur-Henderson Giants.
The Giants hit 10 of the long-range bombs during the game – while the Bucs hit none – and pulled out a 63-51 upset win in Blue Earth.
The Giants will move on to the next round of sub-section action, while the Bucs’ season comes to an abrupt halt.
BEA held a nine point lead at the half, 30-21. However, LSH doubled their first half output in the second period, outscoring the Bucs 42-21.
The game was tied six times in the first half, before the Bucs put on a small surge at the end to gain the nine point lead at the buzzer.
BEA kept a slim lead through the first part of the second half, but four 3-pointers by the LSH players always brought them back close.
The Bucs led by a slim 45-43 score with eight minutes left in the game. That is when a 3-pointer by the Giants’ Tyler Schmidt – who had five in the game – put the Giants up 46-45.
BEA briefly took back the lead at 47-46, but another Giant 3-pointer gave the lead to the visiting team for good at 49-47 – with three and a half minutes left in the game.
The Giants went on a 10-2 run to finish out the game in those final minutes. Garrett Anderson scored the Bucs only points during that spell by sinking a pair of free throws with 1:12 left in the game.
Anderson led the Bucs in scoring with 19, followed by Nick Lee with 13 and Nathan Carr who added seven. Anderson also had 11 rebounds and four blocks, while Lee had 10 rebounds and six assists.
Besides Schmidt’s 25, the Giants got 17 points out of Joe Hank and 11 from Jack Fraser.
BEA made 11 of 20 free throws, while LSH sank 9 of 14.
The Bucs finish the season with a record of 15-11. The victory pushed the Giants to a 7-18 record, and into the quarterfinals of the sub-section. They faced Waterville-Elysian-Morristown on Thursday night in Mankato.
Wednesday’s game had been postponed from Tuesday due to weather.