Class A State Second Round Preview
No. 1 seed Sioux Falls Christian vs. No. 5 seed Tea Area, 6 p.m.
This is the first of two great games on deck tonight. Sioux Falls Christian enters the season undefeated and the No. 1 team in Class A, while Tea Area enters as the defending champs. Tea Area is the closest Class A team to defeating the Chargers this year.
The Titans jumped out to a quick lead and held onto a comfortable lead last night and will look to do the same tonight. The big concern for the Titans is Noah Friedel’s health will he be at 100 percent the whole game? He limped off the court right before the end of the third quarter last night, but return within the first couple minutes of the first game. Tea made nine three-pointers for 39 percent, for a team that is deadly from the three-point line the Titans better hope to have another good shooting night.
For the Chargers they are so balanced on offense with four starters averaging around 11 and no higher than 13 or so. Lincoln Unruh didn’t have a high-scoring game last night, but his defensive pressure on Red Cloud in that second quarter was just as good if not better than scoring 20 or so. The scary thing with them is Unruh had 4 points last night but could go for 30 tonight.
Keys: Friedel’s health, SFC can’t let Tea get off to a hot start like last night and get hot from deep. Tea can’t shut down every player but they need to make sure only one guy goes off not the other four starters as well. Justin Hohn needs to stay in the game, he has had problems with foul trouble in recent games.
No. 2 Madison vs. No. 3 Sioux Valley 7:45 p.m.
Both teams had pretty easy wins last night as they both won by 20 or more. Sioux Valley pounded the ball inside against Dakota Valley and it seemed like nothing could go wrong for them. Trevor Hanson had 21 including a couple of deeep three’s, the other Trevor, Trevor Olson had 20. It will be key for Sioux Valley to utilize their size inside against Madison. They shot lights out from three-point range as they made 12 from downtown.
For Madison, they have quickness on their side, along with SDSU commit Aaron Fiegen. The Janke brothers have been unstoppable this season averaging about 27 points combined. Jaxon Janke exploded for 30 points last night, he also had five steals that converted into transition buckets on the other end. He’s just as good on the defensive side as he is on the offensive side. The Bulldogs will hope to get off to a better start than they did last night.
Keys: Sioux Valley needs to utilize their bigness down low and pound it in. To counter that the Bulldogs need to have the Janke’s be hot and have Fiegen on fire too. The Janke’s are deadly in the fastbreak, if they get a lot of steals that lead into fastbreak buckets it could be a long night for the Cossacks.