Boys grab fifth at Lakota Nation Invitational

Three wins by large margins and one close loss.
Those were the results for the Custer High School boys basketball team at last week’s Lakota Nation Invitational, a result that brought the team a fifth- place finish in the tournament’s top bracket and a smile to head coach Paul Kelley’s face.
“Coming out of LNI 3-1 is huge,” Kelley said. “Only one team comes out 4-0. We should have big grins on our face and be excited. Are there things we need to improve on? Absolutely. But we feel pretty good about our first week into the season.”
Saturday the team squared off against Maȟpíya Lúta (Red Cloud) and came away with a dominant win, 60-30.
“I was impressed how we came out against Red Cloud. We needed that,” Kelley said. “We talked all week about getting a signature win. We did a lot of good things. We moved the ball well and got a lot of kids productive.”
The Wildcats wasted little time taking charge, scoring the first eight points of the game and going up 11-2 after a Cade Lehman three-pointer. That was followed by another Lehman three-pointer off an assist from Kyle Virtue, and Custer eventually took a 16-2 lead at the end of the first quarter.
The second quarter started much the same as the first, as Brady Virtue dished to big brother Kyle for a basket on the break, followed by a Brady Virtue rebound and dish to Lehman for a foul and the basket. The subsequent free throw made the score 23-6 and the rout was on.
Nick Zuniga hit a three-point shot for the Crusaders to cut Custer’s lead to 25-11 a little later in the quarter, but that was answered by a Lehman steal and basket at the 3:22 mark.
Custer went up 20 to start the third quarter after a basket underneath by Carter Boyster off a Rhett Lowe assist, but Red Cloud got the Wildcat lead down to 15 a few minutes later before Boyster scored again and Kyle Virtue scored off a Crusader turnover giving the ’Cats  a 42-21 lead.
With just over two minutes left in the third quarter Roland Sedlacek scored after grabbing a pair of offensive rebounds and Lowe followed the Sedlacek basket up with a three-pointer right before the third quarter buzzer to give Custer a 52-27 lead heading into the final period.
Lehman and Virtue both led the offensive charge for Custer, scoring 17 points each.
On the defensive end, Custer held the Crusaders to 29 shot attempts and 34 percent shooting.
Friday of the tournament saw Custer battle Crazy Horse, getting off to a slow start before pulling away in the second half for a 85-50 win.
Virtue had 25 points and 13 rebounds in the game, while Drew Lehman added 12 points and Cade Lehman scored 11.
“We came out really flat. We didn’t do the things we needed to do,” Kelley said. “We were really careless with the ball.”
Kelley said his team may have been lethargic from its previous night’s battle with White River or the 9:30 a.m. start, but eventually settled down and corrected mistakes.
“They hit some shots and caused some problems for us. Give them credit for getting us out of sync in the first half,” he said. “The second half we put things together a little more and took better care of the ball.”
Thursday the team took on White River, falling 52-48 in a game where it led by as much as eight but stalled on offense late in the game.
“We did a really good job defensively, but offensively we didn’t play with a sense of urgency like we needed to,” Kelley said. “It was a game of runs. We made early mistakes, throwing the ball away, things like that. We just didn’t execute like we needed to.”
The Tigers focused on slowing down Kyle Virtue, and did a good job doing so, holding him to eight points. Cade Lehman led the team with 13 points, while Lowe added 11.
The Wildcats shot only 36 percent in the game and got to the free throw line only seven times, compared to 17 (and 16 made) for White River.
The Wildcats started the tournament with a 64-41 win over the Wall Eagles, led by 20 points from Kyle Virtue.
“Our depth and speed really got to Wall. In the second half they found some kinks in our armor and capitalized on those,” Kelley said. “We made adjustments as the tournament went on, and it was able to carry us to the success that we had.”­
Kelley lauded Sedlacek’s play in the game, saying he is often overlooked because he doesn’t score at the clip of some other Wildcats.
“Roland did a fantastic job on both ends,” Kelley said.
Kyle Virtue was named to the All-Tournament Team, and was among the players Kelley pointed to as having strong tournaments.
Kelley said Cade Lehman, Carter Boyster and Cody Dirkes are other Wildcats  who had strong tournaments on one end of the floor, or both.
“We are excited about what the kids can do, but we have to keep in mind it’s going to be a tough, grueling season,” he said.
The Wildcats are off until Dec. 29-30, when they head to the  Chadron Rotary George Watson Holiday Classic at the Chicoine Center on the campus of Chadron State College. The Wildcats open that four-team tournament with a matchup against Hemingford, Neb.
“We don’t know much about them. We’ll get some stuff on them and get prepared,” Kelley said.