Staff photo by Steve Muscatello Springfield’s Mitchell Buerkle drives to the basket between a pair of Waterville-Elysian-Morristown defenders during the Tigers’ Section 2A playoff win Monday at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter.

ST. PETER — For the fourth year in a row, the Springfield Tigers will play for the Section 2A championship.

The Tigers (26-3) held off a pesky Waterville-Elysian-Morristown team 70-60 at Gustavus Adolphus College to advance to Friday’s Section title game against Tomahawk Conference rival New Ulm Cathedral. The Greyhounds swept the season series in the regular season. Friday’s game will be at 6 p.m. at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Decker Scheffler led the No. 2-seeded Tigers with 24 points. Mitchell Buerkle scored 15 points while Nolan Hovland and Ivan Hovland each scored 12.

Grant McBroom led No. 1-seeded WEM with 30 points. Domanik Paulson scored 13 and Zach Sticken finished with 12.

The first half was a back-and-forth battle the entire 18 minutes. WEM had an early 5-2 lead but neither team was unable to get a significant lead until late in the first half when Buerkle found Scheffler wide open underneath the basket to give the Tigers a 36-31 lead with 3:11 left.

McBroom put an end to the 6-0 run with a 3, but the Tigers were able to penetrate and find open baskets, taking an 8-point lead at one point. The Bucs closed the half with a 5-0 run, putting the Tigers up 42-39 at halftime.

McBroom got off to a fast start in the second half and gave the Bucs a 47-44 lead with a 3 early in the half. He scored WEM’s first 8 points in the half.

A pair of baskets from Ivan Hovland gave the Tigers a 57-51 lead before another McBroom 3 cut the lead to 57-54.

The Tigers followed with a 7-0 run, highlighted by a Buerkle 3 and an Ivan Hovland basket to make it 64-54.

The Bucs found some late energy and hit back-to-back 3s to cut it to 68-65 with 1:49 left. After a McBroom free throw, Nolan Hovland hit a basket inside to put the Tigers ahead by 4.