PHD Playoff Central: Nielsen, Kerkvliet lead Castlewood over WW

Ryan James March 3, 2021 @ 01:53 PM

Max Scott. [player_tooltip player_id="812196" first="Kalen" last="Garry"]. [player_tooltip player_id="963774" first="Reed" last="Rus"]. [player_tooltip player_id="975521" first="Garret" last="Kerkvliet"]. Ben Witt. [player_tooltip player_id="975529" first="Caleb" last="Simons"]. Players that created big memories last night as March Madness kicked off. Learn about them and more! PHD Playoff Central. Game of the night? Hard to top Parkston beating MVP 67-64 in overtime. Six-foot-3 MVP sophomore guard [player_tooltip player_id="963774" first="Reed" last="Rus"] scored 21 points with eight rebounds sinking 7 of 19 attempts. Rus is one of the top names in Class A basketball going into the next two seasons and we saw a taste of that last night. Rus had games of 31 points, 30, 26, and 25 late in the year. That was not enough to overcome the effort of 6-foot-5 junior big Max Scott. Scott put together a monster 27 point, 10 rebound game in the win and firmly put his name in the prospect watch category going into the spring and next winter. Scott is a strong 215 pound multi-sport prospect. Parkston next faces Madison this Friday. The Big Stage. De Smet defeated Hitchcock-Tulare 79-47 in expectable fashion. Junior guard [player_tooltip player_id="812196" first="Kalen" last="Garry"] was the star he was expected to be scoring 30 points. It wasn’t the number as much as it was the efficiency. Garry was 10 of 14 from the field, four of six from the arc, and perfect on six chances at the foul line. Throw in ten boards and eight assists and you have a player that was two assists from a triple-double. Upset City. There were four five seed vs four seed upsets last night but which one was a true upset? A true surprise? I would go with Castlewood over Wolsey-Wessington 54-45. Castlewood beat Wolsey-Wessington by two scores earlier in the season but then went on a four game losing streak. This game also lists as an upset (at least the biggest "upset" of the night which really isn’t much) because of the expectations that the Warbirds had coming into the year. The Warriors simply had more balance. Senior frontcourt player [player_tooltip player_id="975521" first="Garret" last="Kerkvliet"] had 14 and 8 last night (leading scorer and rebounder for his team) while junior six foot junior guard [player_tooltip player_id="968158" first="Tristan" last="Nielsen"] knocked out five threes and scored 21 points. Players to Watch. Ben Witt. A Burke six foot guard. Ben has proven to be one of the top junior playmakers in all of Class B basketball. Witt broke the school record earlier this year scoring 40 points and a lot of that production is from Witt’s often red hot three-point shooting hand. Last night Witt put up 35 of his team’s 82 points plus eight assists to his teammates. The estimation was that Witt created 56 of his team’s 82 points through his points, the shots he created, and the foul shots that he also created. Burke is now 17-4 and takes on a Corsica-Stickney team that beat Burke 74-69 a few weeks back. Witt looks to lead his team to the region title game with a win on Friday. Hat Tip to the Career. A couple seniors that saw their career end tonight can go on proud of the many highlights they’ve created, and memories etched in the brains of the community that watched them. The highest ranked senior to see his season end was Kolby Kaser of MVP. Kolby is a 6-foot-3 wing that had a rough shooting game his final night (scored nine points) but has been an all league player for multiple seasons. The other senior who’s team dropped a playoff game was [player_tooltip player_id="975529" first="Caleb" last="Simons"] of Edgemont. Simons did everything he could for his team all season long including a 23.4 point, 11.5 rebound average as a six foot guard. White River knocked Edgemont out but Caleb scored 25 of his team’s 27 points giving everything he had.