And find that offense it did, with Eric Lozano, Braylon Nelson and Chase Zufall all hitting 3-pointers as the Indians stormed back to tie the game at 54. Sleepy Eye continued to pour on the points as it finished the game with a 91-82 win.

“That’s some of our situational stuff that we do in practice,” Sleepy Eye head coach Shane Heiderscheidt said. “We’ll put the starting group down 10 with eight minutes to go or nine minutes to go, and we’ll play it live. We always try to have the kids prepared for situations like that.

“And it was just finding the open guy and the hot hand too. We kept the ball alive, and Braylon Nelson did a great job on the glass, and Chase Zufall had 8 straight points [without a miss] in two minutes or so. He was a nice spark for us off the bench.”

Nelson led all scorers with 28 points, along with 11 rebounds and four assists. Brayden Heiderscheidt had 26 points, six rebounds and seven assists, while Lozano had 18 points, three rebounds and five assists.

Staff photo by Ari Selvey Nicollet’s Henry Kennedy drives to the hoop during a nonconference boys basketball game against Sleepy Eye Monday at Nicollet High School.

Henry Kennedy had 18 points an six rebounds for Nicollet, while Carson Kettner had 18 points and five rebounds. AJ Kramer had 14 points and five rebounds, and Henry Oscarson added 11 points.

“We shot really bad today,” Nicollet head coach Chris Hulke said. “We lacked the energy and we got beat. But the shots were falling [early], the energy was there for a little bit, but the second half we couldn’t make a layup, couldn’t make a 3. That’s what happens when you don’t shoot it good. You get beat.”

The game was close early, with a 3-pointer by Nicollet’s Abe Manson giving the Raiders an 11-10 lead as Sleepy Eye called a time out with 12:22 to go in the half. The game remained tight until the Raiders went on a 10-2 run, with Kennedy finding driving lanes for 6 of those points, to take a 25-17 lead. Sleepy Eye got going again with a 3 from Brayden Heiderscheidt, but Nicollet got the lead back out to 35-24 with layups from Kennedy and Kramer. A shot in the paint by Kettner made it a 37-27 game and a layup from Kramer gave the Raiders a 39-31 lead headed into halftime.

Sleepy Eye came out of the break with a 3 from Nelson, then another from Zufall to make it a 44-38 game. Nicollet responded with a 3 from Keegan Hulke and a putback from Kettner for its 50-42 lead, but Sleepy Eye caught fire from the field with a 12-4 run with four 3-pointers.

“We just had to settle down and make the extra pass,” coach Heiderscheidt said. “Once we started doing that, we started shooting the ball in rhythm, and the percentages go up. You could tell on a lot of our shots attempts, it was three, four passes before we looked for a shot. And we also started playing defense a little better too. We stopped them from getting down hill and tried to make them shoot more 3s. It was just settling down.”

The Raiders took the lead again with a floater from Kennedy and a 3 from Keegan Hulke, but Sleepy Eye continued to fight, taking a 68-67 lead on a fading baseline jumper through a foul by Brayden Heiderscheidt. Brayden Heiderscheidt hit another fading mid-range shot to make it a 70-67 lead that extended to 76-67 after a pair of free throws by Lozano. Nicollet stayed cold as Sleepy Eye hit its free throws down the stretch and sealed away the 91-82 win.

“When the shots go in, you can win games, and when they don’t, you can’t,” coach Hulke said. “We run sets, we got good shots, but when you can’t make shots there’s nothing you can do. Frustrating, hopefully we can learn from it, move on and get better.”

Sleepy Eye (5-1) hosts Granada-Huntley-East Chain/Truman/Martin Luther on Tuesday, Dec. 30, while Nicollet (4-2) plays in a tournament at Lakeview High School on Monday., Dec. 29.