No. 4 Tigers record win against No. 1 Yankton

HURON — For the second time in as many outings, the Huron boys’ basketball team, which is ranked No. 4 in Class AA recorded a win against a higher-ranked opponents on Saturday at Huron Arena.
After getting past No. 3-ranked O’Gorman on Thursday, the Tigers handed top-ranked Yankton its fourth loss of the season with a 67-65 victory in their latest contest.
“First and foremost I want to thank the Huron community, the Huron crowd and the Yankton community for traveling up,” Huron coach Jon Schouten said. “What an environment, what a great place to play, what a great game.”
The Bucks, who are fueled by 6-foot-7 junior Matthew Mors, held the upper hand for most of the opening half.
Three consecutive baskets by Mors, including a dunk, followed by the second of two 3-pointers from Cooper Cornemann gave Yankton a 16-11 advantage as it threatened to pull away early.
Using 3-pointers from Nathan Boehrns and Kobe Busch, the Tigers battled back to within a point at 18-17, but Yankton would use Cornemann’s third of five 3-pointers in the game to score five unanswered points and close the first quarter with a 23-17 advantage.
“They came out and hit a couple baskets early. Our guys were a little flat-footed,” Schouten said. “When you have this much anticipation for a game that tends to happen. When you have that much adrenaline built up and then you come down and you don’t get the shots you think you are going to get or offensively its not going the way it should. It was one of those things where you have the feeling they are going to keep coming and keep going at it.”
With back-to-back 3-pointers by Mors to start the second quarter Yankton built its first double-digit lead of the game at 29-19.
Huron answered with a 10-3 run to shave its deficit back to just three points at 32-29 with 2:24 remaining in the first half. Busch started the rally with a conventional 3-point play and Boehrns ended it with three consecutive free throws after being fouled on a long-range jumper.
Two more 3-pointers by Mors and a putback by his 6-10 teammate Hunter Kotrous provided the Bucks with an 8-0 run to close the second quarter and stake a 40-29 lead at the half.
“We took Yankton’s best punches that first half. They shot the ball at 67-percent clip,” Schouten said. “Similar to Thursday night, there’s enough fight in these guys. There’s no better way to play a basketball game in the Huron Arena with that kind of magnitude with everything on the line, conference titles and all that stuff.”
Mors, who has already committed to playing collegiately at Wisconsin, amassed 17 of his game-high 29 points in the first half, while Cornemann had 14 of his 23 points during the first 16 minutes of play.
With eight of the first 10 points in the second half, including back-to-back 3-pointers from Cornemann and Mors, the Bucks took their biggest lead of the game at 48-31.
Four straight free throws and a pair of field goals by Teegan Evers would propel a comeback for the Tigers as they put together a 15-0 run to narrow Yankton’s lead to 48-46 with 1:50 remaining in the third quarter.
Huron would pull to within one with a 3-pointer by Busch, but Yankton would lead 52-49 heading into the final quarter as Cornemann connected on a shot at the buzzer.

“It was two heavyweights standing in the middle of the ring going at it. So the bottom line is you have to applaud our kids’ grit,” Schouten said. “There’s nothing more to say. The bottom line is they never quit on each other, they ust kept believing, kept fighting and kept chipping away. Believing in each other that we can hit shots, get stops.”
Yankton would score the first seven points of the fourth quarter to push its advantage back into double figures at 59-49, but the Tigers would answer with a 12- run to pull even at 61-61 with 2:32 remaining in the game.
Evers spurred the rally by hitting a floater in the paint, which was followed by a dunk on the following possession to energize the home crowd. He capped the run, which included five points from Boehrns, with a conventional 3-point play as a result of being fouled on a layup that was created off a steal by Derick Siemonsma on the defensive end of the floor.
After Mors scored on a field goal to regain the advantage for Yankton, Boehrns connected the last of his four 3-pointers in the game to give the Tigers their first lead since early in the opening quarter at 64-63.
The lead stood in Huron’s favor as the teams swapped scoreless possessions. After a timeout with 36.2 seconds left on the clock, the Tigers controlled their own destiny with Yankton being forced to foul in order to stop the clock.
Siemonsma stepped to the free-throw line and drained a pair of shots to widen Huron’s lead to 66-63 with 33.9 second remaining.
The Bucks managed to pull back to with a point on a layup by Cornemann, but they sent Siemonsma back to the charity stripe, where he converted on the first of two shots to give the Tigers a 67-65 lead with 15.8 seconds left on the clock.
One last attempt at the offensive end by Yankton came up empty, allowing Huron to escape with the upset.
“I thought we had a lot of chances where we could’ve just folded, but our kids just kept going,” Schouten said. “I couldn’t be more happy for our guys and our fans tonight.”
In addition to knocking down some key free throws at the end of the game, Siemonsma was credited with a solid defensive effort, which limited Mors to just 12 points in the second half.
“The game plan coming in was Kobe was going to be on him and we switch everything so most of the time we are going to get multiple guys on him. Teegan switched on him a lot,” Schouten said. “What you saw in the second half was the urgency that these guys were switching with and ‘Oh I am switching, Oh there is Mors so I have to get my hand up.’
 “Kobe was hampered with an ankle that he tweaked in the warm up. I went to Kobe and said hey we are going to get Derick on him because he can move a little quicker,” he said. “We couldn’t really do that in the first half because Derick had two fouls right away and didn’t want to get him a third. In the second half Derick stepped up to the defensive challenge.”
Evers would finish with 23 points to lead Huron, which is also now 14-4, while Boehrns and Busch had 17 and 16 point, respectively.
Evers also tallied a team-high five rebounds, while Boehrns and Cooper Fryberger each had three assists. Busch and Siemonsma each had a pair of steals.
Kotrous had six rebounds for Yankton, while Mors had three assists and two steals.
Yankton won the junior varsity game 62-33.
Kler Hae was the only Tiger in double figures scoring with 11 points.
Cade McNeil had 27 points to lead Huron  to a 75-67 win in the sophomore game.
Max Kranzler had 19 points, while McNeil and Jayden Beck each had seven rebounds.
Huron will close the regular season with home games against Harrisburg on Tuesday and Watertown on Friday. Both games are slated for 7:30 p.m. Starts as part of doubleheaders at Huron Arena.

Yankton     23  40  52  65
Huron     17  29  49  67
Yankton (14-4): Trevor Fitzgerald 1 0-0 3; Aidan Feser 1 0-0 2; Cooper Cornemann 9 0-0 23; Matthew Mors 11 2-2 29; Hunter Kotrous 4 0-3 8. Totals: 26  2-5 65.
Huron (14-4): Hayden Hegg 0 0-2 0; Cooper Fryberger 2 2-2 6; Teegan Evers 9 5-5 23; Kobe Busch 5 2-2 16; Nathan Boehrns 5 3-3 17; Derick Siemonsma 1 3-4 67. Totals: 22 15-18 67.
Rebounds: Y 24 (Mors 5); H 23 (Evers 5). 3-point goals: Y 11-18 (Cornemann 5, Mors 5, Fitzgerald 1); H 8 (Busch 4, Boehrns 4). Turnovers: Y 10; H 5. Assists: Y 11 (Mors 3); H 8 (Fryberger 3, Boehrns 3). Steals: Y 5 (Mors 2); H 8 (Busch 2, Siemonsma 2). Fouls: Y 12; H 10.