After building a 47-29 lead four minutes into the second half, the Mankato West boys basketball team needed a late run to upend Winona 73-59 Friday in a Big Nine Conference boys game at the West gym.
West (6-2 overall, 3-1 in the Big Nine) took what looked to be a commanding advantage when senior guard Talay Sartell drained a top-of-the-key 3-pointer. However, the Winhawks (2-4) went on a 13-0 run behind the scintillating offensive play of senior guard Isaiah Bell, who ended up finishing with a game-high 30 points. Bell started the surge with a driving hoop and free throw before his 3-pointers capped things.
After West’s Emmett Olson and Winona’s Aiden Falls traded hoops, a seven-point Scarlets’ burst — junior guard El Staley’s slashing drive, long head-on 3-pointer, along with senior guard Landon Dimler’s driving three-point play — extended the margin to 61-49 with 5:16 to go. Staley tallied 20 points and six rebounds for the winners while Dimler added 14 points and six boards.
“We got off to a good start but then their point guard (Bell) hit some tough shots, but we were able to hold on by getting to the rim and the line,” Dimler said. “We played more as a team at the end. We started out playing as a team but then we kind of hero-balled it. We weren’t hitting our shots so we had to start getting to the rim.
“We have a lot of depth where we can circle in four or five guys at a time. There’s no drop off and we’ve got fresh legs on defense. Every day in practice we do the shell drill for 20 minutes. We take great pride in our defense and stopping teams so we can generate offense.”
Winona made one final charge, trimming the deficit to 61-55 on Jackson Harvey’s follow-up basket with 3:15 remaining. However, senior forward Calvin O’Connor’s driving basket and junior forward Kyle Steinke’s two inside hoops along with four free throws from Dimler put things away. Steinke put through 13 points in the contest and hauled down a team-best eight rebounds.
“We let them back in the game in the second half after playing a tough game last night,” Staley said. “We did a good job of stretching it back out the last five minutes of the game. We gathered ourselves back together, kept playing good defense and started making shots to widen our lead. We’ve got a lot of scorers on this team so every night somebody is going to have a big game. … We just need to keep distributing the ball.”
West, which connected on 28 of 60 from the field for 46.6% compared to the Winhawks’ 19 of 43 for 44.1%, built a 36-25 halftime lead behind Sartell’s nine-point effort along with O’Connor’s three-point play and Dimler’s top-of-the-key triple. Sartell finished with 12 points and six rebounds for the Scarlets, who won the boards 30-27 and committed fewer turnovers 19-14.
“We may have gotten a little lazy after getting that big lead,” West coach Jeremy Drexler said. “We were a bit unfocused and we’re subbing a little bit more, too, so that can mess up your rhythm a little bit. I thought we defended pretty good overall. We just needed to get back to attacking the basket. We got a little stagnant and weren’t really putting the ball on the floor. … We needed to get back to attacking the rim and not jacking up so many threes.”
West plays Wednesday at Austin.