Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Sleepy Eye St. Marys’ Kaleb Wait puts up a layup during the Section 2A North Subsection finals game with Cleveland on Wednesday in Sleepy Eye.

SLEEPY EYE — Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s is now just one more win away from the state tournament.

The Knights put together multiple strong runs in the second half of the Section 2A North Subsection boys’ basketball finals with Cleveland on Wednesday night, coasting to an 81-48 win as a result.

St. Mary’s (18-3) was the No. 2 seed in the north, while Cleveland (13-3) was the No. 4 seed.

Carson Domeier led the Knights with 31 points, six assists and five rebounds.

“We knew they were going to play some sort of a zone,” Domeier said of Cleveland. “So to get hot early for us was kind of a big part, just to get a nice lead. They kind of inched their way back, but we just stayed poised and kept knocking down shots.”

Trent Steffensmeier also had 16 points for the Knights, while Kyle Goblirsch added 14 points and seven boards. Kaleb Wait had 12 points, six assists and four steals for the Knights, while Jacob Lux had 12 rebounds.

Cleveland was led by Isaac Mueller’s 15 points, while Ben Holden had 12 points.

The Knights started Wednesday night off with an 11-0 run before Cleveland answered. After the Clippers stopped the run, Domeier canned back-to-back 3s to put the Knights up 17-2.

Domeier had five 3s in the game, all in the first half.

A 9-0 run had the Clippers trailing 19-13, but Domeier’s fifth 3 of the night and a pair of free throws from Steffensmeier moments later put St. Mary’s back up by double digits, 26-15. Cleveland cut its deficit to 30-24 after a free throw by Mueller, but Goblirsch rebounded a missed 3 on the other end and put it straight back up off the glass to beat the buzzer and have the Knights up 32-24 at halftime.

A bucket inside by Holden had Cleveland trailing 35-31 early in the second half, but Wait buried a 3 to give the Knights some momentum back right after. A couple of minutes later, the Knights put together a 14-0 run to break away and lead 55-35, forcing a Cleveland timeout shortly after the run ended.

Lux, Steffensmeier, Goblirsch and Domeier all scored for the Knights during the run.

Cleveland cut its deficit to 55-40 after a corner 3 by Elijah Sullivan, but the Knights got another 14-0 run after that to pull away with a 69-40 lead. The largest lead of the night for St. Mary’s was by 34 points, with a 3 by Will Walter being the Knights’ final points of the night.

St. Mary’s will now see both its boys’ and girls’ basketball teams in a section finals matchup this year. While the girls play Thursday night, the boys will play at 7 p.m. Friday against the winner of the south subsection, top-seeded St. Clair. Both games will be at Sibley East High School in Arlington.

St. Clair moved on to the section finals after beating Waterville-Elysian-Morristown 75-64 in double overtime on Wednesday.

“I think we need to play team defense solid, beat our man to the spot,” Domeier said about Friday’s game. “Just need to bring energy every single game, and I think we’ll fight hard.”