After having to have the final game of the Dakota Valley Conference tournament moved around a couple of times, the Dell Rapids St Mary Cardinals and Colman-Egan Hawks played the 3rd/4th place game on Tuesday, January 22nd at Dell Rapids St Mary High School.
The Cardinals started out fast in the first quarter. St Mary raced out to a 13-point lead at 15-2 with 1:15 to play in the first quarter. Colman-Egan closed out the quarter on a 6-0 run to close the gap at 15-8. The Hawks continued the momentum and tied the game 21-21 with 4:57 to play in the second quarter. Colman-Egan finished the second quarter on a 9-4 run to take a 30-25 lead into halftime.
St Mary scored the first six points of the third quarter, and the Cardinals took a 31-30 lead after a three-point shot by Connar Kangas with 5:22 to play in the quarter. The two teams traded baskets for the remainder of the third quarter. Colman-Egan took the 41-38 advantage heading into the fourth quarter. The two teams traded baskets and leads throughout most of the fourth quarter. St Mary took a 53-50 lead with 1:30 to play on another three-point shot from Kangas. Nate Tolley tied the game 15 seconds later at 53-53. After a defensive stop, Dalton Voelker made two free throws with :24 to go to give Colman-Egan a 55-53 lead. St Mary called a timeout, and then ran an offensive set to perfection as Ethan Geraets was wide-open and made the game-tying layup from the left block with :04 to go. That layup sent the game into overtime.
Colman-Egan scored the first six points over the first two minutes of the overtime period to take a 61-55 lead. Ryan Eining hit a contested shot from the left block with 1:30 to play to cut the lead to 61-57, but that was as close as St Mary would get. The Hawks made three free-throws over the remainder of the game to seal the victory. Connor Libis made a layup at the buzzer to make the final score 64-59. Thw Hawks took third place in the tournament, and the Cardinals finished fourth.
Libis led the Cardinals in scoring with 34 points in the game. Voelker led Colman-Egan with 32 points and 21 rebounds. Weston Geraets finished with 14 rebounds for the Cardinals. St Mary finished the game shooting 37% from the field, while the Hawks shot 47% from the field.
St Mary (8-3) will host the Lake Preston Divers in a girls and boys double-header on Friday, January 25th. Those games can be seen on Big Sioux Media.