By Brent Maycock – KSHSAA Covered
GREAT BEND – Playing with what Cunningham coach Bob Stackhouse calls “reckless abandon,” there are times when the duo of Luke Albers and Will Wegerer can drive him a little wild.
But that free-wheeling mentality has also driven Cunningham to heights the program has never seen before.
Namely, the program’s first-ever state championship basketball game.
“They’ve got no fear in them,” Stackhouse said of his high-scoring duo. “They play with reckless abandon sometimes, but it pays off.”
In the biggest of ways in Friday’s Class 1A Division II semifinal. Getting 25 points from Albers and 24 from Wegerer, including two monster baskets in the final minutes, Cunningham upset No. 1 seed Dighton with a 61-58 victory.
The win put the Wildcats in the title game for the first time in program history where they will take on Lebo (18-7) at 4 p.m. Saturday.
The Wolves earned their second straight championship game appearance with a 45-38 slugfest win over Axtell, beating the Eagles in the semifinals for the second straight year. The No. 6 seed for this year’s tournament, Lebo has knocked off No. 3 Northern Valley and No. 2 Axtell as it looks to top last year’s runner-up finish.
“We knew going in there wasn’t a clear-cut favorite this year,” Lebo coach Dennis Becker said. “We took out a good team in sub-state, we took out a good team in the first round. Why not us?”
And why not Cunningham as well as the Wildcats have proven their mettle in daunting situations in their first state appearance since 2013.
It took everything Cunningham had in Wednesday’s quarterfinals just to get a shot at the top-seeded Hornets. Falling down by 17 points in the first quarter of its quarterfinal game with Bucklin on Wednesday after the Red Aces put up 27 points in the period, Cunningham rallied to claim a 70-66 with a 23-13 closing period.
So when the Wildcats gave up 23 first-quarter points and trailed by eight at halftime of Friday’s semifinal game, they hardly batted an eye.
“Down by 17 the other night, we knew we were still in the game,” Albers said. “We just have to go out there and play our game and good things happen.”
Plenty of good things happened in the third quarter against Dighton to completely turn the game around for the Wildcats. Down eight, Cunningham opened the third quarter with a 9-4 run to get right back in the game, eventually turning that into an 18-6 edge in the quarter that gave the Wildcats a 44-40 lead going into the fourth quarter.
Wegerer and Albers each had five points in the quarter and the Wildcats locked down of Dighton defensively, holding the Hornets to just 2-of-10 shooting in the period after Dighton had hit 15 of 26 shots in the first half.
“We were denying (Dighton point guard Daniel) Cramer the ball and just had to know where (Carson) Shimer was and try to limit his point,” Wegerer said. “It took everybody and people were stepping up on defense and we just came together and did it as a team.”
Shimer put Dighton on his back in the final quarter and not only helped the Hornets erase the deficit, but take back the lead. Noah Roemer hit a big 3-pointer that put Dighton up briefly at 49-46 before Albers answered with a 3-pointer of his own, and then Shimer scored on consecutive possessions to give the Hornets a 55-51 lead with 2:30 to go.
Albers cut that margin in half with a pair of free throws and then after a rare Shimer miss in the period (he finished 5 of 7 for 10 points in the fourth quarter), Albers calmly drained a go-ahead 3-pointer in a narrow window with 1:37 left to give Cunningham back the lead.
“Me and Will like to have the ball in our hands in big situations,” Albers said. “It’s just trying to make a shot and make big things happen. That’s all it really happened. Luckily, that shot went in.”
Dighton had an immediate answer, however, as Carson Shimer drew enough attention for Boston Shimer to flash free under the basket for a go-ahead layup with 1:11 left. That set up Wegerer to deliver the final heroics as he found a seam in the Dighton defense and slashed for the game-winning layup with 38 seconds left.
“I don’t even really remember it too much,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting to get open and then I don’t even know where my defender went but I was able to get to the basket and put it up. I don’t remember any more than that.”
Dighton put the ball in the hands of Carson Shimer to re-take the lead, but he couldn’t convert. After Wegerer sank two free throws with 20 seconds left to make it a three-point lead, Dighton got 1 of 2 free throws from Roemer and then got a chance to tie or win after Albers missed a pair of free throws with nine seconds to play.
But Cramer’s 3-pointer in the closing seconds was well off the mark and Dagim Reed iced the win with a free throw with a second to play.
“This was definitely one for the ages,” Stackhouse said. “Our kids play so hard and when we face 6-4, 6-3 like we did today we had to find something deep to keep them as far off the boards as possible.”
While Cunningham’s basketball run is the deepest ever, the Wildcats are no strangers to postseason success. Many of the Wildcats were key players on Cunningham’s football team that captured the Six-Player state championship in 2022.
And Stackhouse said that experience has played a role in his team’s run to its first title game.
“I think it’s made a huge difference,” he said. “Once you’ve been in a game like that, everything kind of slows down for you. It isn’t so helter-skelter. They’ve been there, they know what it feels like. They know how to react and handle the situation and they sure did tonight. It was awesome.”
Albers hit 9 of 19 shots, including 4 of 7 3-pointers to lead Cunningham with 25 points while Wegerer was 7 of 16 from the floor and 10 of 13 from the free throw line for his 24 points.
Carson Shimer was dominant, finishing with 26 points, 18 rebounds, 4 assists and 6 blocked shots. Boston Shimer added 11 points and Cramer had 10, scoring all 10 in the first quarter as Dighton got off to the fast start. But after hitting 4 of 5 shots in the period, he only got off two more shot attempts in the game.
SECOND VERSE, SAME … WELL KIND OF … AS THE FIRST FOR LEBO
In reaching last year’s Class 1A Division II state championship game, Lebo turned in an offensive masterpiece in the first half of its 68-52 semifinal win over Axtell, shooting a blistering 69.5% and scoring 42 points.
When the two hooked up again in Friday’s semifinals, well, let’s just say masterpiece wasn’t a term that remotely applied to either team’s offensive performance in the opening half. Disaster-piece, more like it.
Call it bad offense or good defense, it was a dud of of a scoring half. Axtell led 4-3 at the end of the first with each team hitting only one field goal. At halftime, Lebo led 12-9 as the two teams combined to hit just 8 of 40 shots.
“Our guys played their behinds off that first half,” Becker said. “We weren’t doing anything on offense, but neither were they. And that’s what I told them at halftime, ‘Just keep playing defense and we’ll figure out the offense.’ And slowly but surely it came around.”
Indeed, it did. After a dreadful offensive start, Lebo got it going. In particular, Grayson Shoemaker took off.
Held to just six points in the first half, Shoemaker hit 7 of 11 shots in the second half to finish with 20 points and spark the Wolves’ run to a second straight championship game.
“I don’t know that we were really frustrated in the first half, we just knew we weren’t scoring a lot so we had to play good defense,” Shoemaker said. “Our defense was good the first half and then in the second half we started making shots and our offense started clicking.”
Shoemaker was able to get to the rim repeatedly and that opened up things outside for Dominic Risner and Andrew Konrade. Each delivered big 3-pointers in the third quarter as Axtell was starting to chip away.
Lebo was able to keep Axtell’s at an arm’s length for most of the second half, but the Eagles had their chances. Eli Broxterman hit a big 3-pointer that cut the Lebo lead to 39-34 with a minute and a half left.
Then with less than a minute to go, Landon Schmitz scored twice on drives to the rim, the last cutting Lebo’s lead to three. And when the Wolves turned it over on the inbounds pass, Axtell had the ball with a chance to tie.
But the Eagles couldn’t convert and Lebo hit free throws late to seal the win.
Shoemaker was the only Wolf in double figures with 20, but Zach Oswald added 9 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocks and kept Axtell from getting much offense at the rim. Konrade and Risner each scored six and Caleb Durst had a big field goal in the fourth quarter.
Broxterman led Axtell with 16 points, but was just 4 of 18 from the floor and 4 of 13 from 3-point range. Schmitz and Grady Buessing each added 6 points but standout Brandon Schmelzle was liminted to just four points, picking up his fourth foul three minutes into the third quarter.
After graduating some key pieces off last year’s state runner-up team to Greeley County, Lebo now is in position to finish what it started last year when the Wolves fell by just six points in the title game.
“It feels amazing to show people we can play at a high caliber and make it back even though we lost some good players,” Shoemaker said. “The guys we have this year have stepped up and done their roles.”
CLASS 1A DIVISION II BOYS SEMIFINAL BOXSCORES
CUNNINGHAM 61, DIGHTON 58
Cunningham … 18 … 8 … 18 … 17 … — … 61
Dighton … 23 … 11 … 6 … 18 … — … 58
Cunningham (21-3) – McGuire 1-4 1-2 3, Wegerer 7-16 10-13 24, Albers 9-19 3-5 25, Reed 0-6 1-2 1, Sterneker 3-3 1-1 7, Halderson 0-1 1-2 1, Kinsler 0-0 0-0 0, Rogers 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 20-49 16-24 61.
Dighton (23-2) – B. Shimer 5-9 1-2 11, Cramer 4-7 0-0 10, C. Shimer 12-18 2-2 26, Redburn 2-5 0-0 4, von Leonrod 0-3 0-0 0, Ming 0-2 0-0 0, Roeer 2-4 2-4 7. Totals 25-48 5-8 58.
3-point goals – Cunningham 5-13 (Algers 4-7, Sterneker 1-1, Wegerer 0-3, McRuire 0-1, Reed 0-1); Dighton 3-9 (Cramer 2-4, Roemer 1-1, Redburn 0-2, Ming 0-1). Rebounds – Cunningham 24 (Albers 6), Dighton 31 (C. Shimer 18). Assists – Cunningham 8 (McGuire 5), Dighton 15 (C. Shimer 4). Turnovers – Cunningham 5, Dighton 9. Total fouls – Cunningham 11, Dighton 18. Fouled out – none.
LEBO 45, AXTELL 38
Lebo … 3 … 9 … 15 … 18 … — … 45
Axtell … 4 … 5 … 11 … 18 … — … 38
Lebo (18-7) – Durst 2-6 0-4 4, Risner 2-6 1-2 6, Shoemaker 10-17 0-1 20, Konrade 1-6 3-7 6, Oswald 3-3 3-3 9, Ferguson 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 18-38 7-17 45.
Axtell (22-3) – Broxterman 4-18 4-6 16, Detweiler 0-3 0-0 0, Shaughnessy 1-9 0-0 3, Schmelzle 2-6 0-0 4, Grady Buessing 3-5 0-0 6, Schmitz 3-4 0-0 6, Sandmann 1-3 1-2 4, Grant Buessing 0-3 0-0 0. Totals 14-5 5-8 38.
3-point goals – Lebo 2-6 (Risner 1-2, Konrade 1-2, Durst 0-1, Shoemaker 0-1); Axtell 5-20 (Broxterman 4-13, Sandmann 1-1, Detweiler 0-1, Shaughnessy 0-5). Rebounds – Lebo 28 (Oswald 8), Axtell 34 (Schmitz 9). Assists – Lebo 7 (Konrade 3), Axtell 9 (Detweiler 5). Turnovers – Lebo 14, Axtell 11. Total fouls – Lebo 12, Axtell 19. Fouled out – Axtell: Schmelzle.
