Bowman County takes Roughrider Tournament Championship over Trinity, 63-54

Dec. 17—BOWMAN — The 52nd Annual Roughrider Basketball Tournament in Bowman County ended with a thrilling win for the hosts, as the Bulldogs outlasted Dickinson Trinity, 63-54. The Bulldogs benefited from Bishop Duffield's 33 points, while the Titans' Nick Sobolik had a team-high 14 in a game that was tight, throughout. Other scores from the day included a 60-54 win for New England over Belfield, Hettinger-Scranton more-than doubled-up Beach, 62-29, and the Bowman County JV team upended Richardton-Taylor, 66-45, in the event's Day 3 tipoff game.

"It's early in the season, and as a coach of course we're going to nitpick a little bit about it, but we were able to play fast," Bulldogs head basketball coach Ronnie Stewart said. "But as fast as we got Trinity to play, they're still methodical and they're still going to run some clock off there and make us play their game."

He added, "It's early in the year and we beat a tough team and this team is Roughrider champions and I'm proud of them."

In a game that was tightly contested, throughout, the Bulldogs won on their home floor over their old Region 7 rivals Trinity, partly due to a big second-quarter that saw BCHS outscore the Titans, 18-10, and take a 36-25 lead into the locker rooms at the half. Bishop Duffield was firing on all cylinders during the game and scored 20 of his game-high 33 points in the opening 16 minutes. Sobolik scored 6 in the first two quarters to pace Trinity, while Ty Dassinger added 5 to THS's frontcourt play.

While Dickinson Trinity forced numerous tense moments and attempted to charge their way back into the game — while keeping it close — the Bulldogs were able to push past Trinity on the strength of another 13 from Bishop Duffield and the Bulldogs shot an impressive 14-of-18 from the free-throw line throughout the second half. Jonah Njos added a double-digit, 10-point effort off the bench for BCHS

Trinity outscored the Bulldogs in the final quarter, 21-15, but it wasn't enough despite a 6-point second half from Jace Kovash — who ended up with 9 — and 8 second-half points from Sobolik in the losing effort.

"I think the biggest thing is that you're looking at a team (BCHS) that's very experienced versus playing against a team of guys who are still learning their roles and you could see that," Dickinson Trinity head coach Gregg Grinnsteiner said. "But I was happy with our effort; I thought our kids really competed their tails off, but give Bowman County credit; they made plays."

In another tight matchup, New England was able to hold off a surging Belfield team that wouldn't give up, as the Bantams outscored the Tigers down the stretch in the second half, but couldn't upend a disciplined New England team in the third-place game.

"To start the game, we talked about how we're going to handle adversity because we had a tough game against Bowman and just wanted to make sure when we came out tonight we wanted to be tough and to compete," New England head coach Kaine Hanson said. "I wanted to see how they would handle adversity ... and they responded and we came out and got better and I'm proud of the way the guys competed."

The difference-maker might have been a dominant first half that opened up a 35-23 lead for the Tigers, with Tallen Binstock scoring 11 of his team-high 16 points in the opening 16 minutes, which included a trio of 3-pointers. Theodore Kirschemann and Brock Ellis added 7 each in the first half, with both ending up in double-figures during the game.

The Bantams kept matters close with 8 from George Lockett, while Mason Kessel kept his hot-shooting alive with three tres in the first two quarters and 11 of his game-high 21 points.

Belfield scored 17 to the Tigers' 10 in the third quarter but were outscored 15-14 in the final eight minutes, as Ellis added a timely 3 to bring his total to 10 and Binstock notched 5 more, while Kirschemann poured in 8 more to help NEHS to the win.

Belfield's Kaden Zacher went into double-figures with 10 and Lockett came close with 9 for the Bantams, who surprised quite a few people over the course of the week.

Hettinger-Scranton shook off the doldrums of an earlier loss to Dawson County's JV squad to take a solid win over Beach in the fifth-place game, holding Beach High School to single-digits in both opening quarters and opening up a 39-16 lead at the half and never looked back. Caden Andersen ripped off a trio of tres in the opening two quarters and Maddox Pierce scored 9 of his double-digit 13 in the half, while Blake Larson went into double figures with 10 of his team-high 14.

The Tigers pulled away down the stretch and outscored Beach, 23-13, in the final two quarters, despite a team-high 11 points for the Buccaneers' Shawn Murphy as the only scorer in double-digits for the team, although Colt Ambo came close with 9.

"The thing that we've talked about is to trust the process and the end-result will take care of itself," Hettinger-Scranton head coach Kelly Pierce said. "That's how we've been practicing, and we finally brought it to the game."

The Raiders lost to hosts Bowman County, whose junior varsity team took over for a departed Dawson County JV squad that played in the opening two rounds of the tournament. BCHSJV took a 38-30 lead into the half on the strength of 11 points from Jonah Njos — who ended up with 18, tied for the game-high with his brother, Noah Njos — and a pair of 3-pointers from Dylan Hedge.

Chase Christensen kept the first half close for the Raiders with 13 of his team-high 15, while Caiden Dohrmann scored 8 of his 11.

But the shooting went cold in the second half for Richardton-Taylor, which saw the Bulldogs JV team race past them in crunch-time on the way to the win. Jackson Fischer ended up in double-digits for Bowman County at 12 in the seventh-place contest.

"We have to take care of the ball," Raiders head coach Kari Dohrmann said. "I think, most importantly, there's a lot of things that we have to work on: Ball-handling and things like that, but we putting some feathers in our hats, too; I did see a lot of good things, too. But the fact that we can't play, reserved-versus-relaxed, there's a lot of things that we have to work on."

For more information about boys prep basketball in North Dakota, please keep reading your Dickinson Press and/or visit the website at

https://ndhsaanow.com/teams/basketball-boys

.