Hanson holds on to beat Ethan

The Hanson boys’ high school basketball team kept its composure after having a strong chance to win at the end of regulation Saturday the Corn Palace.

Hanson freshman Jordan Marquardt missed two free throws with less than a second on the clock and the game tied at 44 in the fourth quarter, but the Beavers outscored Ethan 14-10 in the extra period for a 58-54 overtime win in the District 11B championship.

“If you’d say point to the guy you want in that situation, one hundred times I’d point to (Marquardt),” Hanson coach Josh Oltmanns said. “I would have bet a lot on him to make those, and I would put him right back on there to do it again.”

Marquardt had a game-high 19 points. After he missed the two free throws, he was sent to the foul line 32 seconds into overtime and swished his first shot. He held his arms up and looked at his teammates with an amused look on his face, wondering why he couldn’t have done that at the end of regulation.

“Both of those shots felt good,” said Marquardt, whose team is 17-5 and plays Tripp-Delmont/Armour at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Corn Palace in the Region 6B championship for a state tournament berth.

Even Ethan coach Tim Hawkins thought the game was over when Marquardt went to the line for a chance to win it.

“I certainly thought it was over,” Hawkins said. “He’s a great free-throw shooter.”

Reid Smith hit a 3-pointer from the corner to open overtime. Hanson got two offensive rebounds from senior Alex Kayser, helping the Beavers build a nine-point lead in overtime. Ethan rallied late, but the deficit was too much to overcome.

“Hanson’s offensive rebounding killed us,” Hawkins said. “There were three or four key rebounds they had throughout the game that I thought switched the momentum.”

Ethan, which ended its season 13-8, was led by Blake Bartscher and Jace Connor, who both had 13 points. The Rustlers trailed by five points with 3:18 to go, but they got 3-point shots from Bartscher and Colton Bierle to tie the game at 44.

“We told the team there’s still a chance and they believed it,” Hawkins said. “We had a couple guys hit some big 3-pointers for us.”

Bartscher also finished with six assists and Kendall Lindeman had seven rebounds.

Hanson led 14-12 after the first quarter, and only six points between the two teams were scored in the second quarter.

Jacob Bartscher had a game-high eight rebounds for the Beavers, who were 18-of-31 from the field and 25-of-38 from the free-throw line. Ethan was 18-of-45 from the field and 13-of-16 from the line.

Hanson last made it to the state tournament in 1989, a year when the Beavers were the state runner-up. The school is one win from making it back to the state tournament, and it will have to beat TDA to do it.

“We have to find a way to hold Adam Fink to under his average,” Oltmanns said of TDA’s senior guard. “I’ve seen a lot of basketball players in my nine years of coaching, and he’s one of the best I’ve ever seen.”

H 14 16 28 44 58

E 12 16 26 44 54

Tags: sports, updates, basketball, hanson, ethan