There was no date circled on the calendar.
But Litchfield boys basketball team members remembered the sting of losing to Maranatha in the Section 5AA tournament last year.
Saturday night, the Dragons did their best to erase that memory.
Using a blistering hot shooting start and a stifling defense in the first half, Litchfield upended Maranatha 71-61 at the LHS gym.
“Oh, we remember,” Litchfield coach Matt Draeger said of Maranatha’s 54-52 win over the Dragons in the section semifinals last year. “As a coach, you try to use everything you possibly can. And you know, I asked the guys if we let one slip away last year, and they felt like we did, and I told them, ‘Well, we can’t let that happen again.’ And they didn’t.”
Litchfield, 15-5 overall, will meet top-seeded Minneapolis North, 12-1, in the Section 5AA semifinal game at 7 p.m. Wednesday at North High School. North, ranked No. 1 in QRF rankings and No. 2 in the state in Class AA by Minnesota Basketball News, advanced with a 102-48 win over Southwest Christian Saturday.
“I mean, it’s fun,” Litchfield senior guard Tyson Michels said of meeting North. “We get to play down there, (against) arguably the best team in the state, and it’ll be a great experience. We’ll give them our best shot.”
Which is exactly what the Dragons did against Maranatha, a team that entered Saturday’s contest with a 12-5 record and riding a four-game win streak.
Litchfield had won six of its last seven, the only loss being to state-ranked Annandale in the regular season finale, and was coming off a dominating 73-33 win over Dassel-Cokato in the opening round of the section tournament.
The Dragons started a bit slowly, the result of trying to figure out Maranatha’s matchup zone, according to Draeger, but once they got going offensively they took control of the game.
“We see very few matchup zones throughout the year, and they’re pretty good at it,” Draeger said. “It took us a few minutes … and then, you know, once we were able to get the ball moving a little bit more, and we were able to find Avery (Liestman) and get him open, that was good.”
The 6-foot-4 Liestman was coming off a 24-point performance against Dassel-Cokato in which he hit eight three-pointers on 8-for-15 shooting. His hot hand from beyond the arc had not cooled off at all Saturday night as he scored a game-high 32 points, including four three-pointers. Senior forward Ben Alsleben (three) and sophomore guard Alex Draeger (two) added to the three-point act as Litchfield stretched its lead in the first half.
“It’s always nice for me, because I just get to pass it to Avery and Alex and Ben, and when they’re hitting shots, it makes it so much easier for me,” said Michels, who had eight assists to go with 10 points and six rebounds. “I can just play defense and worry about other parts of the game and help the team out.”
The defense of which Michels spoke was doing its part to keep Maranatha off balance as the Dragons built the lead to 34-14 by halftime. Maranatha finished the game shooting 36 percent, while Litchfield hit 60.6 percent of its shots.
“I think our zone the first half gave them a fit,” Draeger said. “They went into a big drought in the first half and they didn’t score a lot. And I thought that was the difference. It gave us the separation going into halftime.”
But Draeger’s halftime message was one of caution, telling the Dragons that Maranatha was bound to make a run in the second half.
It didn’t happen immediately, as Litchfield had a 44-24 lead six and a half minutes into the second half, but Maranatha’s hustling, physical defense began to force some turnovers that led to points and with just under five minutes to go, the Dragons’ lead was down to 11.
“We told them exactly what happened was going to happen,” Draeger said of his halftime message. “They’re gonna come out after you and they’re gonna be physical and they’re gonna slap the ball … and you need to be strong, you need to be physical, you need to protect the basketball. We knew they were gonna score, going to start making shots. And they did, and you know, you gotta withstand the storm.”
The storm watch became a hurricane warning with about four minutes to go.
Michels, who later said he didn’t recall ever fouling out of a game, picked up his fifth foul with just over four minutes to play and went to the bench for the rest of the game.
Litchfield would have to find a way to fend off Maranatha without its “quarterback” and best ballhandler.
“Like I told them in the locker room, we haven’t been in that situation without him (Michels),” Draeger said. “We take Tyson out in practice, and we work in those situations. We never had to do it in a game, but we were prepared for it if it happened. And to our kids’ credit, they just were, ‘OK, Logan (King) is going to go here, and Avery is going to go there … they handled it.
“You know, I didn’t like the way we kind of panicked a little bit, but you know that’s guys in new situations, and I think for the most part, we handled it about as well as we could with what we had out there,” Draeger added.
With King, Liestman and Alsleben handling Maranatha’s full-court pressure and several Dragons converting big free throws over the next few minutes, Litchfield held off the rally and advances to what is expected to be its most difficult challenge of the season. Minneapolis North.
“It’s gonna be fun,” Draeger said. “We get to play with the best team in the state, the No. 1-ranked team in the state, on their home floor. We don’t have anything to lose, and we have got some seniors that think they can win and we’re gonna go up there and go after them. That’s all we can do. We’re fortunate or unfortunate, or however you want to call it, to have the best team in the state in our section, and this is what you want … that’s what you have to go through in order to get to the state tournament. We’ll go out and we’ll have a plan in place, and we’ll see what happens.”
