Staff photo by Steve Muscatello Nicollet’s Riley Hulke (30) drives to the basket as Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart’s Dane Daak (14) defends on the play Tuesday in Nicollet. For more photos of this event go to cu.nujournal.com

By Travis Rosenau

Journal Sports Writer

NICOLLET — On the first day of the Nicollet invitational, Nicollet defeated Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart 82-58.

Leading the Raiders to victory was Riley Hulke with 38 points, eight assists and eight steals. Also for the Raiders was Ean Thomsen with 14 points and eight assists, Anthony Macias with 11 poinds and eight rebounds and Ben Bode with 11 points and nine rebounds. For the Mustangs, Payton Diepold had 15 points, while Trent Weispfennig added 14.

Nicollet started off with hot shooting on multiple 3-pointers by Hulke and Thomsen in the first half alone. After two 3-pointers in a row by Hulke, Thomsen knocked down a 3-pointer to give Nicollet a 9-4 lead after the first few minutes of play. BLHS then went on a run and took a 12-9 lead on a 3-pointer by Weispfennig.

After another 3-pointer by Weispfennig and a basket by Stefan Johnson, the Mustangs led 17-12. Nicollet climbed back into it with relative ease and took the lead 20-19 on an and-one basket by Anthony Macias. The Raiders led 44-31 at the half after some great passing and shooting.

After a brief run by BLHS, the Nicollet lead was cut down to seven, 48-41. Hulke continued to put on a scoring clinic in the second half, knocking down another 3 to make the score 59-43. Nicollet pulled out to a 74-51 lead with less than four minutes to play and with the final bucket won with its largest lead of the night at 24.

Nicollet head coach Chris Hulke was impressed with his team’s shooting and playmaking throughout the game but wants to continue to see improvement with its defense.

“We moved the ball well,” Hulke said. “We shared the ball. Riley had a real nice night shooting, real nice defensively. Nice night for a freshman. He’s a pretty good ball player and I’m glad he’s on my team.

“But, we moved the ball well, we share the ball — it’s how we play the game. We love to share the ball. We can score, it’s just a matter of if we can shut some people down or at least slow them down.”

Nicollet moves to 2-4 on the year and plays New Ulm Cathedral at 7 p.m. on Wednesday at Nicollet.