They made that statement in a big way at the expense of a tough Nicollet Raiders team as the Rabbits racked up a season high in points scored with a 113-86 win in the Tomahawk-Valley Conference boys basketball title game.

Brayden Guetter led the attack for the Rabbits (24-3) with a game-high 40 points, seven rebounds, five assists and five steals.

“Just wanting to make history,” Guetter said of his performance. “This is a great team and we’ve worked together all year, so to get this far, might as well make a statement coming into the [Section 3A] tournament on Saturday. Make everyone double take a little bit.”

Drew Kemp poured in 31 points and added six assists and five rebounds also for the Rabbits, while Caden Frericks did a bit of everything with 16 points, 15 rebounds, eight assists and five steals.

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Wabasso’s Caden Frericks boxes out Nicollet’s Carson Kettner during the second half of Tuesday’s Tomahawk-Valley Conference boys basketball title game at Wabasso High School.

Tuesday’s double-double saw the 6-2 Frericks successfully finish the regular season with a double-double in all 27 games played.

While points are fun to score, Frericks said being able to lead his team on the boards has meant a lot to him.

“It’s really special to me, because if we don’t have the ball, we can’t score, we can’t do anything,” Frericks said. “We need the rebounders out so we can get the ball in and score.”

Jack Burns added 7 points and four assists for the Rabbits.

The Raiders (21-6) were led by Carson Kettner and Henry Kennedy’s 24 points, while Keegan Hulke dropped in 17 points.

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Nicollet’s Henry Kennedy prepares to put up a shot during Tuesday’s Tomahawk-Valley Conference boys basketball title game against the Wabasso Rabbits at Wabasso High School.

The Raiders had to play catchup early on as the Rabbits got out and running. After a Guetter 3 and back-to-back layups by Kemp, the Rabbits were up double digits, 12-2.

The Rabbits started turning turnovers into points, with a turnover leading to a fast-break, two-handed slam dunk by Jayden Remiger and 26-13 lead. An 8-0 run had the Rabbits up 38-18 and another Nicollet turnover minutes later turned into a slam dunk by Guetter and 51-21 Rabbits lead.

A 3 by Kemp had the Rabbits up 52-38, but the Raiders were finally able to get something to go their way, ending the half on a 13-0 run to trail 58-36 at halftime. The run saw a pair of 3s by Keegan Hulke and 7 points from Kettner.

“We came out in the first half with a lot of energy and in the second half we kind of expected them to die off and they didn’t really,” Guetter said. “We just had to maintain our lead instead of letting them claw back.”

Back-to-back buckets inside by Kennedy stretched the run to 17-0 for the Raiders to begin the second half. The Raiders hung in despite the big deficit and chiseled it down to 16, 74-58, after a 3 by Noah Fitzner. The Rabbits got their lead back up to 22, but Abe Madson and Keegan Hulke hit back-to-back 3s to have the Raiders down 15, 91-76.

Despite the second-half push, the Rabbits regrouped and got three consecutive buckets from Frericks, Tavyn Larson and Burns to cross the century mark and lead 103-80.

Despite the Raiders getting a nice run in the second half also, the Rabbits finally started getting out to the 3-point line and getting their fast-break offense going again.

“We just knew that we couldn’t let them shoot 3s,” Frericks said. “They’re good at shooting 3s, we just had to stop them at the 3-point line and make them drive it because we have big guys down low that can help stop their layups.”

The Raiders dropped a game to Waterville-Elysian-Morristown on Monday 78-61, but head coach Chris Hulke said he was happy with his team’s ability to stay with a strong team like Wabasso and not quit.

“Super proud of the effort and last night we didn’t respond that way and all the coaches were frustrated,” coach Hulke said. “We challenged the kids to respond. Wabasso’s very good, let’s get that straight. They’re very good. They played well, they shot the lights out. That’s a tough team we didn’t have a lot of answers for defensively, but the way our guys battled the last three minutes of the first half, we put some subs in that played with energy.

“Keegan was really energetic there in that first half, Carson and Henry were really good the second half. I’m really proud, I know it’s hard to say that in a 25-point loss where we gave up [113], but that’s how we have to play and we have to do it the whole game. We just had a bunch of weak turnovers where we gave up too many easy baskets, otherwise we probably played them pretty even for the most part.”

A 3 by Tucker Larson gave the Rabbits their largest lead of the night, 113-83, in the closing minutes.

The Rabbits pushed the tempo early and often to finish with a season high in points, but the 86 points given up also tied their season-high total in points allowed, giving the Raiders a bit of a moral victory against a team that has routinely routed teams while keeping points against them down.

The Rabbits entered Tuesday’s game allowing just 59.4 points per game against them, with their first game of the year seeing them allow 86 points to Renville County West in a 95-86 win in Wabasso.

“Like I told the boys and my other coaches, I’m an offensive guy, so I know I can coach that [laughs], I just wish I had a little bit better defense,” coach Hulke said. “But they’re tough to stop when they have that many players. The big guy down low got every rebound, Guetter’s go good, [Kemp] made a bunch of shots. Sometimes teams just play really well and you can’t be mad.”

Wabasso begins Section 3A playoffs on Saturday as the No. 3 seed in the north taking on No. 6 Montevideo, while the Raiders await the winner of Friday’s Section 2A playoff opener between No. 12 New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva and No. 21 Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart. The winner of that game will head to Nicollet for a 7 p.m. game on Tuesday.