Blooming Prairie Wins with Long Ball

The Blooming Prairie boys basketball team drained seven three-pointers in the first half of their 72-50 Section 1A quarterfinal victory over Southland Wednesday night at the Mayo Civic Center. They added two more after halftime. Good defense and rebounding were other keys to the win. BP plays Grand Meadow in the semifinals at 11 am Saturday, March 7 with play-by-play on Kat Kountry 105 FM and on the free Kat Kountry 105 app.

Coach Nate Piller said, "They rebound really well so we wanted to limit the second chance points. Defending the three-point line was also a top priority and other than a couple threes in transition during the first half, we were OK."

"I thought the boys played very good basketball tonight. We weren't flashy other than some good shooting, but we had multiple good possessions at each end of the court. I think we took pretty good care of the basketball too."

Kaden Thomas connected on five three-pointers in the first half and two more in the second while scoring 27 points. Gabe Hagen added 17 points. Zach Archer scored 12 including a pair of three's.

Top seed BP (23-3) will face Grand Meadow (21-7) in Saturday's section semifinal. The Awesome Blossoms edged the Super Larks 54-53 January 9. Grand Meadow has won five in a row. Two of their losses this season have come in overtime. They lost a five-point decision to Hayfield, but lost by 17 to Southland, who BP just beat by 22 Wednesday.

Grand Meadow, the fifth-seed, topped fourth-seed Schaeffer Academy 40-38 Wednesday. Blooming Prairie is on a six-game winning streak and has won nine of their last ten. BP has lost a pair of close game against WEM this season, plus a tight loss to Goodhue at Target Center.

The winner of Saturday's game will face the winner of No. 2 seed Hayfield and No. 3 Randolph on Thursday, March 12 at the civic center arena.