MINNEAPOLIS — The Mankato East boys basketball team played rough and tumble with Orono for 36 minutes on Thursday and finally prevailed 64-62 in the semifinals of the Class AAA tournament at Williams Arena. The Cougars survived 24 personal fouls and 21 successful free throws by the Spartans to pull out the win.
The Spartans had a chance to tie the game with two seconds left when one of the state’s top player, Nolan Groves, stepped to the line for a pair of free throws. He missed the first and unsuccessfully tried to bang the ball off the backboard on the second attempt, allowing the Cougars to hold on.
“I could feel it as it left my hand,” said Groves, who finished with a game-high 31 points. “It slipped off my thumb just a little bit. I was hoping it would still bounce off the rim or the backboard and go in but it didn’t.”
Although he wanted a different outcome, Orono head coach Barry Wohler was glad Groves was at the line in that situation.
“If there was anybody in the state I would want to take those shots, it was Nolan,” Wohler said. “This was a very physical game today, probably the most physical we’ve had all season. There weren’t many uncontested shots.”
As they did in the tournament’s opening game, the Cougars got off to a big lead, racing to an 11-2 advantage with 11:36 to play. Ganden Gosch was the main architect of the run, hitting a free throw, a fade-away 8-foot jumper and a 3-pointer from the left baseline to cap the rally.
But unlike the opener, Orono answered quickly. Groves, who scored 44 points against DeLaSalle in the first round, got on track, hitting a couple of 3’s as Orono closed the gap to 16-15. The teams went back and forth from there with Groves hitting a short jumper at the buzzer to make it 29-25 East at the half.
East’s defense was called for 11 fouls in the opening 18 minutes, leading to eight Orono points from the free-throw line, compared to just three for the Cougars.
“We sent them to the line too many times in the first half,” East coach Joe Madson said. “We had to rely on our bench a lot down the stretch when we got into foul trouble. We received some quality minutes from a lot of them.”
It looked as if things were going to go the Cougars’ way with eight minutes to play, as Logan Gustafson hit the second of two straight 3-pointers from the right side to put his team up 54-43. But Orono went on a 15-3 run, led by a dunk and a pair of 3’s from Groves to pull the Spartans to within a point.
Center Brady Wooley’s inside basket with 3:41 to play gave Orono its first and only lead at 60-59. The lead was short-lived as Brogan Madson came off the bench after sitting down with foul trouble, to hit a slicing layup at 3:26.
With the game tied at 62 with 1:23 to play, Amari Nobles hit a huge bucket for East, tipping in his own missed shot in for the 64-62 advantage. The Cougars held on as Groves was unable to convert his foul shot with two seconds left.
“Physical is the way we love to play,” Brogan Madson said. “This was the kind of game we wanted.”
Gosch led East with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Gustafson scored 15 points and Madson finished with 12 points, nine assists and three steals. Wooley had 12 points and 11 rebounds for Orono.
The Cougars (29-1) now advance to the Class AAA championship game against Alexandria at 1 p.m Saturday at Williams Arena.