The South Dakota Weekend (wk4) – PHD Starting Five

<p>Who celebrated the New Year with an awesome Saturday performance?  PHD shines a light on the top performers. </p> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="975500" first="Brady" last="Fritz"]</strong> of Winner (6’2 Guard, Sr).  Junior wing Elijah Peterson’s buzzer beater grabbed all the headlines as it gave Winner a 58-56 win over Lennox.  That said, Fritz was the workhorse with his 25 points in a tight battle. This is a player that was all state in football and now Brady has the Warriors at 5-1 on the court.  Despite a load of attention from Lennox, Fritz scored ten times on 21 attempts including five threes and that’s while only getting one call from the officials all game! </p> <p>[embed]https://twitter.com/BigSiouxMedia/status/1345575243050594306[/embed]</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="963762" first="Brian" last="LaRoche Jr"] </strong>of Lower Brule (6’0 Guard, Soph). LaRoche continues to make his case as a top sophomore in Class B basketball.  At the moment the Sioux are undefeated and their 18 point win over Freeman Academy this weekend gave the Bearcats their first loss of the year.  LaRoche scored 23 points in the victory at the Corn Palace highlighted by a buzzer beater after a steal.  This is a player that is still an underclassmen but he’s already been averaging double digits for three seasons. </p> <p>[embed]https://twitter.com/BigSiouxMedia/status/1345430829045080066[/embed]</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="757827" first="Connor" last="Libis"]</strong> of Dell Rapids- St Mary (5’9 Guard, Sr).   Libis is now a top 15 scorer in the history of South Dakota basketball, and he’s got at least 15 more chances to push his nearly 2,300 career points to an even higher mark.  If Libis has more games like he had versus White River, a total of 2,800 isn’t out of reach.  Libis had 43 points against the Tigers knocked out four three-pointers and hitting over half of his attempts.  Another memorable game from an all state talent. </p> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="975576" first="Ethan" last="McCune"]</strong> of De Smet (6’3 Wing, Sr). In a 1 vs 2 battle with Viborg-Hurley, [player_tooltip player_id="975576" first="Ethan" last="McCune"] made sure his team stayed in the Class B top spot with a gritty performance leading his team to a 58-54 win.  Ethan dished out four assists, grabbed four boards, knocked out three triples, and 18 points only needed ten field goal attempts to get there.  To make things even more impressive, McCune did that at the Corn Palace and then this morning he committed to the college that plays at the Corn Palace, DWU. Big weekend. </p> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="975509" first="Kelton" last="Vincent"]</strong> of Sioux Valley (6’0 guard, Sr).  Sioux Valley remained undefeated on the season and is flying up the Class A Rankings right now.  The most recent win was against snake bittern Tea Area who has now lost three games by a combined six scores, all to top five squads. Sure sophomore [player_tooltip player_id="963744" first="Oliver" last="Vincent"]’s poke of a pass was eye opening and how about the arm on junior [player_tooltip player_id="968190" first="Parker" last="Puetz"]?!?!  But the guy who sprinted from the top of the key after separating from his man is the one that did the hustle, and scored the bucket of glory. </p> <p>[player_tooltip player_id="975509" first="Kelton" last="Vincent"] made his debut on Sportscenter in one of the most amazing buzzer beaters that you will see.  In fact, look below and once again see the greatest high school sports play anywhere in the nation, in 2021!</p> <p>[embed]https://twitter.com/SanfordPentagon/status/1345598203475931137[/embed]</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>