Staff photo by Ari Selvey Springfield’s Bryan Buerkle puts up a shot during the Section 2A, South Subsection Semifinals against Alden-Conger Thursday at St. Peter High School.

ST. PETER — No. 2-seeded Springfield scored 98 points in its second consecutive game during a 98-61 win over No. 6-seeded Alden-Conger Thursday in the Section 2A, South Subsection Semifinals at St. Peter High School.

Springfield defeated Madelia 98-67 in the first round of the tournament.

“We’ve been running our offenses really good,” Springfield’s Noah Vogel said. “Shooting well so far, and just playing well as a team so far offensively.”

Despite the high number, Springfield head coach Lance Larson thought the team could do better than what they showed on the court.

“Games like this are hard to play,” Larson said. “You come in, you’re probably a bigger favorite than you’d want to be in games like this, and there’s maybe a little added pressure on the kids to play hard and perform. I didn’t think we played particularly well in the first half especially. But we had some guys that can make some shots and that kept them at bay a little bit. I think we need to execute better to play a team like Mountain Lake Area, otherwise it’s going to be a long night for us.”

Springfield will take on top-seeded MLA at 7:45 p.m. Monday at Gustavus Adolphus College.

“Keys for us will be we have to take care of the basketball,” Larson said. “Try to slow them down a little bit. We really need to rebound on both ends. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to totally stop them, but if we can contain them a little bit, make some guys that normally don’t score try to team us. And we need to make shots. If we shoot it well, we’ll be alright.”

Springfield did shoot it well against Alden-Conger, hitting 40% of their shots from behind the arc as a team with 10 made 3s. Seven of those came in the first half, where Alden-Conger went scoreless from 3-point range in the first half.

“We knew they weren’t a super good shooting team,” Vogel said. “I think coming into this game they were shooting 25% for 3-pointers, so we were going to make them shoot it, make them beat us from the 3-point line.”

Vogel led the Tigers with 22 points and six rebounds, while Isaac Fredin-Jensen had 16 points while Bryan Buerkle had 15 points, 12 rebounds and three assists. Aiden Moriarty added 13 points and seven rebounds while Brayden Sturm had 11 points, five rebounds and 10 assists.

Alden-Conger kept it close in the first half, due mainly to the paint presence of Andrew Wasmoen, who scored the first 8 points for the Knights. Springfield’s 3-point shooting proved to be too much, however, and Springfield held a 47-34 lead going into half.

The Tigers began to run away with the game in the second half, and while their 3-point makes dropped to three in the second half, they found rhythm inside with Moriarty and Buerkle getting post-up opportunities. This was also helped by Wasmoen picking up his fourth foul with 12:56 to play in the game. By the time Wasmoen returned with five minutes to play, Springfield held an 87-55 win, and the game was out of reach for the Knights. In the end, the Springfield reserves got three minutes of play to wrap up the game.