Staff photo by Jeremy Behnke Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s Braden Hansen looks for an open teammate as BOLD’s Braeden Tersteeg defends on the play in the Section 2A boys’ basketball playoffs at St. Mary’s on Thursday.

SLEEPY EYE — Start strong and finish stronger.

That’s what seemed to happen for the Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s boys’ basketball team as it raced to an early lead in the first half, only to lose it later. However, the Knights got that momentum back and defeated BOLD 73-60 in the Section 2A playoffs Thursday night.

The win means the Knights (the No. 2 seed in the Section 2A, North Subsection playoffs) will host No. 3 seed Lester Prairie at 7 p.m. on Saturday.

The loss ends BOLD’s season at 5-8 while the Knights improved to 16-3 overall.

Carson Domeier led all scorers with 35 points. He also had seven rebounds and six assists. The junior hit some late 3s in the second half and also drew a charge with 2:08 left in the game that all but ended the game.

The Knights led 40-28 at halftime thanks to Domeier’s 19 points at the break, but the Warriors went on a 16-0 run to open the second half to wipe that lead away. Drew Sagedahl, who ended his career with a 33-point effort, led the charge during that run.

“We knew they were tough, Drew’s a pretty good shooter, they’ve got some shooters, we kind of went a little bit cold to start out the half, but we called a timeout and take a breather, gather ourselves back in,” Domeier said.

The Knights also got big efforts from sophomore Kaleb Wait and junior Trent Steffensmeier. Both finished with 14 points and Wait finished with four assists.

The Warriors slowly chipped away in the second half and took a 41-40 lead on a basket by Sagedahl with 12:26 left in the second half. But after a timeout, the Knights eventually regrouped and took a 50-48 lead on a basket from Domeier with 8:05 left.

Steffensmeier then hit a three-point play to put the Knights up 53-50, and the lead grew to 57-50 on a basket from Domeier with 5:50 left in the game.

Up 59-52, Domeier hit a pair of 3s that saw his team go up 65-54 with 3:20 left.

A minute later, Domeier drew a charge against BOLD’s Ethan Sullivan and the Knights hit free throws the rest of the way.

The Knights know that the next game will be jus as tough.

“It’ll be a battle, everything will be a battle,” Domeier said. “We gotta come to play one game at a time.”