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Boys basketball: Willmar Cardinals see their season end at St. Cloud Tech

tom elliott, west central tribune, willmar, minn.
·4 min read

Mar. 7—ST. CLOUD — To Max Mobley and Khalid Muhumed, the season was over in warp speed, or about as fast as the St. Cloud Tech Tigers were Tuesday night.

Second-seeded Tech, trying to get back to the state tournament, beat No. 7 Willmar 80-44 in the Section 8AAA quarterfinals.

"It's all over," said Muhumed, Willmar's senior forward, after emerging from a quiet visitors' locker room at Tech. "I grew up playing with these guys since middle school and now it's all over."

"It's a long season," said Mobley, another Willmar senior, one of eight on the roster. "It just didn't fall the way we wanted it to."

Tech is host to a Section 8AAA semifinal at 7 p.m. Friday against Sauk Rapids. The sixth-seeded Storm beat No. 3 Detroit Lakes 70-67.

Also Tuesday, No. 1 Alexandria hammered No. 8 St. Cloud Apollo 89-35 and No. 4 Rocori beat No. 5 Little Falls 65-48. Rocori plays at 7 p.m. Friday at Alex in the other 8AAA semifinal.

The 8AAA final is March 16 at a neutral site.

Willmar's game plan against Tech was to keep the ball away from Tameron Ferguson. The 6-foot-2 junior guard averages 30 points per game and is one of the state's top scorers. He's a whirling dervish of a player who is silky smooth going to the hoop with quick hands.

For a while, the Cardinals' plan worked. It was 19-19 with 10:25 to go in the first half and Ferguson had two points. That he finished with 26 tells you all you need to know about the rest of this game.

"He's a dawg," Muhumed said of Ferguson with the utmost respect.

"He's a tough, tough player," Mobley said. "A real good player."

Ferguson was 11-for-19 from the field, good for 57.9% and 4 of 6 from the free throw line. And this night, he had plenty of help.

Warsame Mahat, a 6-4 junior, came off the bench to score 15 points. Giordan Easley, a 5-11 sophomore, had 14 points and Jalyn Simmons, a 6-5 senior, added 13 points.

Tech shot 64.7% from the field, making 33 of 51 attempts. More importantly, Tigers head coach Don Ferguson said his squad played strong defense. Tech had 16 steals, led by Tameron Ferguson's four.

"We had some broken defensive assignments and we were giving them too many back-door cuts," the Tech coach said. "With us, defense has been a game-changer and once we got that going, it started going better for us."

Tech out-scored Willmar 61-25 the rest of the way. The game went to running time late in the second half.

Willmar's season is over. The Cardinals finish with an 11-16 record and see eight seniors matriculate including Muhumed, Mobley, Jacob Streed, Blake Schoolmeester, Sam Raitz, Nathan Marthaler, Simon Radermacher and Tyler Kowalczyk. Five of them started and all eight were in the rotation. So, yeah, Willmar's going to have a very different look next season.

"It's always a hard day," Cardinals head coach Jeff Holtkamp said about the last game of the season. "I thought Sam (Raitz) did an amazing job on Tameron for a long time defensively."

It, of course, wasn't enough.

"Just enjoy it," Muhumed said of his advice to future Cardinals. "It's going to go fast."

"Work hard because it does go fast," Mobley said.

Willmar (11-16) 42 38 — 80

St. Cloud Tech (16-10) 27 17 — 44

WILLMAR — Scoring: Jacob Streed 7, Max Mobley 7, Simon Radermacher 3, Will Sportel 4, Blake Schoolmeester 7, Khalid Muhumed 7, Sam Raitz 7, Brady Murphy 2 ... 3-point shots: Streed 1, Radermacher 1, Schoolmeester 1, Muhumed 1, Raitz 1 ... Rebound leader: Raitz 6 ... Assist leaders: Streed 3, Schoolmeester 3 ... Steal leaders: Mobley 1, Muhumed 1 ... Block leader: Raitz 1

TECH — Scoring: Jalyn Simmons 13, Tameron Ferguson 26, Warsame Mahat 15, Spencer Swenson 4, Giordan Easley 14, Sam McCarthy 2, Amarr Boyongo 4, Elijah Johnson 2 ... 3-point shots: Mahat 2, Easley 2 ... Rebound leader: Swenson 4 ... Assist leader: Boyongo 3 ... Steal leader: Ferguson 4 ... Block leader: Mahat 1