M/P-B boys hoops head to Bismarck with momentum on their side

Maxwell O'Neill, The Jamestown Sun, N.D.
·3 min read

Mar. 14—JAMESTOWN — Before the 2022-23 boys' basketball season, Medina/Pingree-Buchanan set three goals for the season: Win the Stutsman County Tournament, win the District 5 tournament and win the Region 3 tournament. The Thunder accomplished two of the goals and are headed to the 2023 North Dakota High School Activities Association state tournament.

"It just means the world to me because we wanted to set out to accomplish our goals and every team wants to do that but we faced a lot of adversity through all of this whether that be injuries or other situations that were happening just within our team," Thunder head coach Bob Young said. "But we always overcame them all and as a group we've been through so much together. So, to accomplish this final goal, winning Region 3 was just the icing on the cake."

The Thunder open the state tournament at 2:45 p.m. Thursday, March 16, against Beulah at the Bismarck Events Center. Prior to this season, the Thunder's best finish as a co-op was falling in the Region 3 semifinals in the 2021-22 season.

Young said his message to his team will be to play their game and have fun.

"I'm just going to tell them to have fun, relax and go play basketball. ... We've been through it all, so our message will just be let's enjoy this last week together as a full group and let's go play our best basketball and the chips will fall as they may," Young said.

The Thunder are in the state tournament for the first time since the schools became a co-op ahead of the 2013-14 season. The last time any of the schools made the state tournament was in 2006 when Pingree-Buchanan-Kensal finished in sixth.

This season, the Thunder have three seniors, one of which is Josh Moser who said he can't wait to get the tournament started.

"It's everything, just unbelievable," Moser said. "I dreamed of this as a kid and for it to become a reality is just crazy. It's great being able to do this."

The Thunder clinched a spot in the state tournament with a 57-56 win over Ellendale on March 9. The Miners got a 65-55 win over Bowman County on March 9.

Young said the win over the Cardinals has given his team a tremendous amount of confidence heading into the state tournament.

"Ellendale has been our kryptonite, we have not been able to beat them for years. They've always really got off to great starts against us," Young said. "It seems like every game starts 10-0 or 15-0 and then we play pretty good. But we came out the other night and literally got off to a five or 7-0 lead, I can't remember what it was before they had scored and we just felt really good about ourselves."

The Thunder are heading into the game with a 21-4 overall record and a six-game winning streak. The Thunder's six-game winning streak is the third-longest active winning streak in the tournament. During the Thunder's winning streak they have outscored their opponents 336-255. In order for his team to have success, Young said they have to keep control of the ball and play tight defense and forcing teams into tough shots.

"We've done a great job of making teams take contested shots and then holding them to one shot," Young said. "We have to prevent teams from getting out and running and getting easy things on us. If we can make teams play in the half-court and go against our defense we're a really tough team to play."

The Miners come in with a 20-4 overall record and they are riding a three-game winning streak. The Miners got up to as high as No. 7 in the NDAPSSA Class B polls this year. Young said the Miners present a lot of challenges to his team with their size and ability to shoot 3-pointers.