Mankato West relied on its versatile offense to blister the nets at a 64.9% Wednesday night to overwhelm Marshall 88-54 in a Section 2AAA boys basketball game at the West gym.
West (20-7), the No. 2 seed, used an effective transition game in the early stages before delivering the knockout punch with a deliberate halfcourt game over the final 18 minutes.
Senior guard Landon scored a team-best 23 points, hauled down a team-best 12 rebounds and handed out six assists.
“We executed perfectly and took our shots when they were available,” Dimler said. “We did a great job of hitting the open guys to get them going. We were kind of stagnant at the beginning of the season in the halfcourt and really relied on our transition game. Now, if we don’t get into our transition, we run our halfcourt sets with a lot of motion.
“It’s the playoffs so it’s important to be able to slow the game down when you have a lead so you hold the lead and move on to the next round. We ran our scout defense so we were able to shut down the two guys we needed to.”
Dimler’s top-of-the-key 3-pointer got things going for the Scarlets before senior guard Talay Sartell’s seven-point flurry — two driving hoops and a right-side 3-pointer — produced an early 14-7 lead. After Carter Kepler’s baseline triple cut the deficit to 14-10, junior forward Kyle Steinke’s 8-foot turnaround triggered a 9-0 run that put West in front 23-10 on senior Emmett Olson’s transition basket.
Olson tallied six points and eight rebounds.
“We had a really good week of practice, and the guys showed good patience in sharing the ball,” West coach Jeremy Drexler said. “It helps when you have a bunch of guys who can score and are feeling pretty good. When we share the ball and move it around, your chances of the ball going in really increase.
“I always want perfection so I am always yelling at them, but overall I felt they played really well. I’ve seen Marshall score 20 points in a heart beat so I knew we had to guard and shut down their top two players. One of our goals tonight was to have a 2-1 rebounding advantage. It didn’t start out early on, but we cleaned it up the rest of the game so that was good.”
Steinke’s spinning inside move gave the Scarlets 46-32 halftime lead before his left-side 3-pointer and close-range deuce, along with Sartell’s driving hoop, expanded the margin to 53-32.
Junior guard El Staley, who finished with 20 points and four rebounds, then put through a pair of 3s and two slicing drives as the Scarlets continued their scoring onslaught.
“I thought we really played together and nobody was doing too much,” said Steinke, who ended up with 21 points and eight boards. “When we were able to get the open shots in our halfcourt offense, they couldn’t stop us. We felt we could win it at the start of the second half if we came out strong. We can score from the post or we can shoot. You can’t force us to do just one thing; we can do anything.”
West won the boards 34-22 and committed fewer turnovers 14-7. Marshall, who hit on 21 of 58 shots for 36.2%, was led by Alex Franson with 10 points.
The Scarlets face New Ulm at 7:45 p.m. Saturday in the section semifinals at Gustavus’ Lund Center. New Ulm defeated St. Peter 86-78.
Marshall ends its season at 9-18.