Griffin Chase's 20 first-half points and a solid team defensive effort in the second half propelled the Nevis boys basketball team to a 71-38 win at Bertha-Hewitt on Dec. 20.
Chase finished with 33 points for the Tigers, who used a 9-0 run to expand a 36-25 halftime lead to 45-25. Nevis outscored the Bears 35-13 in the second half to improve to 4-0 against Section 5A opponents.
Jack Landquist (9) and Andrew Dudley (7) combined for 16 points while Landquist pulled down eight rebounds and had three steals. Zach Henry added seven rebounds, three assists and three steals while Chase had five rebounds and six steals. Michael Landquist led the Tigers with four assists and Luke DeWulf had two assists.
Bertha-Hewitt fell to 0-3 against section teams and 1-4 overall.
Nevis, which defeated Browerville 61-54 on Dec. 17, remained at the No. 7 spot in this week's state Class A poll. Browerville remained at the No. 8 spot. Minneapolis North is rated No. 1, Red Lake is rated No. 2 with Central Minnesota Christian, Spring Grove, Lake Park-Audubon and Goodhue following.
ADVERTISEMENT
"We played our first road game of the season and we knew we had to battle a bit of a trap game after beating Browerville. We didn't play our best half of basketball as we got into some early foul trouble, but we really defended well in the second half. We got our starters back into the mix to start the second half and began with a 9-0 run to put it away," said Nevis head coach Scott Kramer, whose team improved to 5-0 overall. "It was actually good for our guys to face some adversity with the foul trouble as it forced us to play different guys and different groups at various times. It was another important section win for us."
