The Raiders were especially dominant on the offensive glass, seemingly getting two or three chances every time down the court.

“We’ve just got a bunch of athletes,” Nicollet head coach Chris Hulke said. “We’ve got 10 guys that we think can play, and they just went after it today. I’m super proud of the way they played, we played 10 guys the whole game, and we have some athletes, and we stressed we can rebound on these guys, and we’ve got to go after them. They did a great job. We missed a bunch of layups in the first half, but the rebounding, our ball movement was excellent, our defense was amazing. Thirty-five points — very impressed.”

Carson Kettner led the Raiders with 21 points and nine rebounds, while Henry Oscarson had 15 points. Abe Madsen scored 15 points, and Henry Kennedy had 13 points and 16 rebounds.

Chase Owens had 8 points for the Mavericks.

Staff photo by Ari Selvey Nicollet’s Toby Oscarson looks for an outlet pass during a Valley Division boys basketball game against Martin County West Thursday at Nicollet High School.

With the win, the Raiders improve to 12-3 overall and 8-1 in the conference. Nicollet controls its own destiny to the Tomahawk-Valley Conference Championship game, with a couple of big conference games coming up soon.

“We’ve got Madelia and Loyola coming up next week, so those are big,” coach Hulke said. “Madelia’s only got one loss, Loyola’s got a couple. Those are big games. We’re trying to get ready for them, but no school tomorrow. We come back with Mountain Lake Area on Tuesday. But we just have to defend. If we defend, we can score points. We share the ball, we have five, six, seven guys that can go for 20. Gotta get healthy, we’ve got a couple of guys with ankle [injuries], but I’m pretty excited about where we’re headed.”

Nicollet’s Keegan Hulke left the game with an ankle injury in the first half.

MCW falls to 1-15 overall and 1-7 in the conference.

The Raiders started off the game with a bang as Kennedy threw an alley-oop dunk to Kettner for a 6-2 lead. MCW answered with a layup from Owens, but a pair of putbacks from Kettner forced an MCW timeout as the Raiders held a 12-4 lead. Kettner dished an alley-oop of his own as Madson finished with a layup, and an and-one by Kettner saw the Raiders with a 21-8 lead.

MCW’s Lixon Forsberg hit a 3-pointer to make it a 26-11 game, but Nicollet continued to push, going on a 13-2 run, with Toby Oscarson, Henry Oscarson, Madson, Kennedy, Kettner and AJ Kramer all getting in on the scoring action for a 39-13 lead. Madson added one more 3-pointer before the halftime buzzer as the Raiders led 44-15.

Things continued to look the same in the second half, with Kennedy opening the half with another alley-oop to Kettner, who laid it in for a 46-15 lead. The game entered running time at the 10-minute mark, and Nicollet’s Jacob Volby scored two layups in transition to close out the game.