Broncos battle for regional berth, stunned by NWC

Head coach Dustan Arlt isn’t fond of Monday games. He’s even less happy about playing Northwest Christian on the President’s Day holiday. In the past two seasons, the only times the LRS Broncos have lost to the Crusaders has been in the sub regional tournament on President’s Day.

“It’s ironic,” Arlt said.

The Broncos opened the sub-regional tournament Saturday in Waitsburg against Waitsburg-Prescott. The Broncos simply overpowered WP and rolled to a 78-33 win.

Then in Monday’s semifinal battle with NWC, a rocky first half created a deficit LRS couldn’t quite overcome in the final half. The Crusaders handed LRS a 51-49 loss.

Even the first quarter was rocky despite the Broncos holding a one-point edge, 11-10.

The Crusaders opened with a four-point lead on a pair of lay-ins.

“We just got out of sync,” Arlt said. The last time the two teams met the Broncos scored 28 points in the first quarter.

“They changed their zone defense and had a big guy out on top,” Arlt said.

That defensive adjustment by the Crusaders gave the Broncos fits. The guards had difficulty delivering the ball inside to the posts.

Mediocre shooting didn’t help.

“We haven’t missed that many lay-ins all year,” Arlt said. “We had a lot of open looks and lightly contested ones.”

The second quarter was all NWC as they outscored LRS 14-6 for a 24-17 lead at the half.

Third quarter play was an all-out battle as NWC held its edge with a 19-18 effort. The Crusaders stayed with the Broncos, purely on the perimeter shooting of Ryan Ricks, who sank five 3-pointers in the quarter.

In the fourth the Broncos returned to form and rolled to a 14-8 advantage with a chance to at least tie the game in the final five seconds. Point guard Dylan Hartz was fouled while launching a three-point attempt.

After a short fastbreak exchange, Hartz was fouled and the team took a timeout to give him a breather.

He sank the first foul shot and then missed the second.

Arlt said the team employed a bit of strategy at that point, which ultimately didn’t go their way. Rather than make the final free throw and be down by one point, Arlt opted to have Hartz miss intentionally in hopes the Broncos would get the rebound.

The plan didn’t work and then LRS, who only had three team fouls at the time, tried to foul the Crusaders in hopes of gaining a possession. The clock ran out before they got another chance on offense.

“We fought hard. We never gave up. We fought to the very end,” Arlt said of his team.

Hartz led the team scoring with 18 points. Cort Ruzicka contributed 12. Tyler Frederick scored eight. Ryan Whitmore, Connor O’Neill and Kyle Canaday each had three. Bridger Smith tacked on two points.

In the previous game against Waitsburg-Prescott, the Broncos were unstoppable.

O’Neill led the team with 21 points as LRS took a 40-14 lead at the half.

Ruzicka would score 10 during the game and Canaday and Wyatt Roettger each had nine points. Jacob Saetre and Whitmore each scored eight. Frederick had seven points and Hartz scored three.

The sub-regional tournament bracket has the Broncos playing Tri-Cities Prep Friday at Mt. Spokane High School at 7 p.m. A win sets the team up to play for the No. 3 or No. 4 seed to the regional tournament.

Arlt suspects the Broncos will win Friday and likely meet Liberty on Saturday.

“The silver lining is we might get an easier regional game,” Arlt said. “We have got to put away the game on Friday. A win on Friday and the odds maybe increase as far as us getting into the arena.”