Sully Dahlberg goes to the hoop to score two of his 28 points against Worthington.

In the final game of their regular season, the Blue Earth Area boys basketball team fell to the Worthington Trojans 68-65 in a game played in Blue Earth on Thursday, Feb. 26.

BEA will now move on to the Section 2AA Playoffs. The No. 5 seeded Bucs will host the No. 12 seeded Blooming Prairie Awesome Blossoms in Blue Earth on Tuesday, March 3, at 7 p.m.

The Bucs’ game against the Trojans was tied at 37-37 following the first half of play. BEA held a slim lead towards the end of the opening stanza but Worthington was able to tie the game before intermission.

BEA held the lead for the majority of the final 18 minutes but Worthington, behind the sharp shooting of Treyson Meinders, overtook the Bucs and held on for the victory.

Meinders was 9-for-13 (69 percent) from behind the arc and finished with a game-high 29 points.

The Bucs were led by Sully Dahlberg who had a strong second half to score a total of 28 points. Will Bromeland tallied 21 points for BEA and Peter Fletcher finished with eight.

As a team, the Bucs were 18-for-27 (67 percent) from inside the arc and 8-for-25 (32 percent) from outside the arc.

The Trojans made half of their 2-pointers, connecting on 13 of their 26 attempts. They were 12-for-29 (41 percent) shooting 3-pointers.

BEA committed 10 turnovers to Worthington’s six. The Bucs outrebounded the Trojans by a 34 to 24 margin.

BEA 82, LSH 72

The Blue Earth Area boys basketball team went on the road Feb. 24 to defeat the Le Sueur-Henderson Giants 82-72 in non-conference basketball action on Tuesday, Feb. 24.

Ryan Dutton’s 3-pointer with 11:44 to play in the first half capped a BEA 10-1 run that gave the Bucs a 20-6 lead with just under 12 minutes to play in the first half.

The Bucs’ largest lead of the game came at the 7:12 mark of the opening stanza when Sully Dahlberg and Peter Fletcher executed a pick-and-roll with Fletcher laying the ball in the hoop for a 27-12 BEA advantage.

The Giants made a run in the final two minutes of the first half. LSH used a trey, two free throws and a traditional 3-point play to score the final eight points before the intermission and trim the Bucs’ lead down to six points at 37-31.

BEA got off to a rough start as the second half of play got underway. Caden Juba picked up his third foul of the game and went to the bench at the 16:44 mark. Meanwhile, LSH scored five of the first seven points in the second half to trim BEA’s lead to three points at 39-36.

Dutton connected on another shot from outside the arc to trigger a 12-4 Bucs’ run which put the Maroon and Gold on top 51-40.

BEA’s Fletcher picked up his fourth foul with 4:52 remaining in the game and the resulting free throws by the Giants made the score 66-64 with the Bucs hanging on to a slim lead.

Will Bromeland was fouled while attempting a 3-pointer and the BEA senior drained all three free throws to boost the Bucs’ lead to five points. Bromeland was fouled again while driving to the bucket and sank two more shots from the charity stripe to extend BEA’s lead to 71-64.

The Giants were forced to foul and the Bucs kept making their free throws. In fact, in the last 4:21 of the game, BEA made all 14 of their free-throw attempts which helped them pull away for their 82-72 victory.

Bromeland finished with a double-double by scoring 40 points and pulling down 11 rebounds. Dahlberg finished with 21 points, Dutton had eight, Fletcher had six, Juba had five and Devin Haase had two.

Fletcher had five rebounds, while leading the team in assists with three and blocked shots with two.

The Bucs were 14-for-22 (64 percent) from inside the arc and 11-for-28 (39 percent) from outside the arc. They made 21 of their 26 free-throw attempts (81 percent).

The Giants were 18-for-34 (53 percent) shooting 2-pointers and 7-for-26 (27 percent) shooting 3-pointers. They were 15-for-20 (75 percent) on their free throws.

As a team BEA outrebounded LSH by a 34-31 margin and had 10 turnovers to the Giants’ eight.