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MVL dominates Belle Plaine, moves on in 2AA playoffs

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau MVL’s Kyreis Harrison looks to pass out of a double team against Belle Plaine on Thursday night in the Section 2AA, North Subsection semifinals at New Prague High School.

NEW PRAGUE — With a dominating all-around game and four players in double figures on Thursday, No. 1-seeded Minnesota Valley Lutheran cruised to a 77-45 win over No. 4-seeded Belle Plaine in the Section 2AA, North Subsection boys’ basketball semifinals at New Prague High School.

MVL outrebounded Belle Plaine 47-28 and also outshot Belle Plaine 47% to 28%. The Chargers also forced 14 Belle Plaine turnovers and committed nine of their own.

Dunwa Omot led MVL with 22 points, six steals, four assists and two blocks, while Kyreis Harrison had 19 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists. Also for the Chargers, Jace Marotz had 15 points and five rebounds and Mason Cox had 14 points and 12 rebounds.

Josh Gregory led the Tigers with 14 points.

The win now moves MVL on to a meeting with No. 2-seeded Jordan in the North Subsection championship game at Minnesota State University, Mankato at 6 p.m. Monday night.

After a 3 by Gregory put Belle Plaine on the board right away to start the game, MVL answered back with a 3 by Marotz, a 3 by Harrison and a layup by Omot for an 8-0 run and an 8-3 lead. Omot gave the Chargers their first double-digit lead of the game, 18-7, with 8:35 left in the half before the Tigers cut the deficit to 18-12 after Karim Tolbert hit a 3 and got a steal for a layup.

MVL put its foot on the gas after that, however, going on another 8-0 run to push its lead to 26-12. Moments later, MVL went on a 7-0 run to lead 35-17, forcing a Tigers timeout with 1:37 left in the half.

With their defense playing at a high level, the Chargers were able to force the Tigers to commit a 5-second inbounds violation with 4.6 seconds left in the half. MVL then got the ball down the court and watched Harrison score on a buzzer-beating layup for a 41-19 MVL lead at the half.

MVL continued the second half where it left off in the first half and stormed out to a 48-19 lead after another 7-0 run. Omot drained a 3 to start the run, while Cox and Harrison added buckets inside to finish the run.

The end of the first half and start of the second half were big for the Chargers in giving them some breathing room and helping put things away early.

“At halftime we talked about how we needed to keep that intensity up,” Harrison said. “That’s exactly what we did. We got a 7-0 run right away [in the second half], so we did exactly what we were told. So that was huge for us.”

After Belle Plaine started to mount some offense with a 6-0 run, Marotz and Harrison each converted on and-ones to erase that run and put MVL up 54-25 with 14:12 left to play. A 3 by Spencer Burden late gave MVL its largest lead of the night and was the final basket of the game.

With the North Subsection finals coming up, Harrison said that the Chargers are simply going to have to continue doing what got them to this point.

“We just play our game and that’s it,” Harrison said. “Just keep playing our game and don’t let the other team control the tempo of the game and just do what we do.”

MVL will be selling advance sale tickets at the school office for Monday’s North Subsection title game from 8 a.m. Friday to 3 p.m. Monday.

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