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Down to the wire

-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla Collin Bleich of Algona shoots over St. Edmond Mitchell Rasmussen on Thursday

Undermanned St. Edmond scratched and clawed on Tuesday, but the Algona boys basketball team had too much bulldog in them at the end.

Junior Collin Bleich led a balanced attack with 18 points as AHS hung on down the stretch to post a 64-59 road triumph over the Gaels and complete the season sweep.

Playing without two of its regulars and seeing another go down due to injury in the third quarter, St. Edmond (7-7 overall, 5-4 in the North Central Conference) still had a chance to tie or win in the waning moments. Instead, head coach Adolph Kochendorfer’s squad saw its three-game victory streak snapped by a physical Bulldog squad, which improved to 8-6 on the year and 6-2 in the league.

“A win’s a win — especially on the road in the NCC,” Algona head coach Noel McLaughlin said. “We got a little rattled toward the end, but calmed down and fought through it. That’s a process, and it’s always good to be able to have teachable and coachable moments when you can also come away (with a victory).

“We’ve done a good job of battling back (this season), but we’re still learning how to protect a lead and finish games that way. And we’re still trying to get all of our guys healthy and on the same page.”

The Bulldogs fought off Gael senior Andrew Gibb’s 32-point performance with balance and depth. Algona got 12 points from Spencer Nelson, nine more from Jason Cecil, and enjoyed a 15-4 advantage in bench scoring against a depleted St. Edmond rotation.

“The kids fought hard,” SEHS head coach Adolph Kochendorfer said. “We moved the ball well and were unselfish with it. If we can keep doing that going forward, we’ll be in good shape.

“We had some clean looks there at the end, but just couldn’t get one to drop. Algona is a big, strong team, but we held our own and did a good job forcing turnovers and taking some charges. We don’t really have any rim protectors on this team, so that’s a must defensively.”

Gibb made 12 of his 22 shots from the floor in his third straight 30-plus point performance and eighth of the season. The senior has scored 214 points in the new year — a six-game average of 35.7 points per contest.

Gibb moved into second on the program’s all-time charts with 1,291 points, passing John Engler (1,270). He now sits behind only current SEHS assistant Nick Clark (1,437), who is No. 1.

“He is fantastic,” McLaughlin said of Gibb. “We did what we could to slow him down, but you just can’t stop him.

“We got a few critical stops and had some clutch rebounds late. And we were 11 of 14 from the (free throw) line in the fourth quarter (after not attempting a foul shot in the first three quarters), which was obviously huge.”

The Gaels led at the end of the first quarter, 18-17, and tallied the first seven points of the second period for their biggest advantage. Algona responded with a 16-5 run to end the half and went up by as many as five in the third, but St. Edmond kept battling.

Bleich caught fire in the third quarter, racking up 10 points in less than four minutes. Gibb countered with four buckets of his own during the same stretch, however. A field goal by James Wartick and a three-pointer from Noah Nelson — both Algona sophomore reserves — gave the Bulldogs a lead they would never relinquish late in the period.

Gibb converted a conventional three-point play with 43 seconds remaining in regulation to pull St. Edmond back within 61-59, and the Gaels got the ball back with under 30 seconds to go. Gibb fired a shot from behind the arc at the 22-second mark that would’ve put SEHS in front, but it only drew iron.

Jason Cecil swished a pair of free throws for Algona to make it 63-59, and Connor Bocken and Jed Tracy both came up empty on triple tries as time ticked away.

Gael junior starter Jerris Duncan went down with a shoulder injury with three minutes to go in the third period and did not return.

Sophomore Drew Schaeffer added 10 for St. Edmond, which returns to action on Friday at unbeaten and second-ranked (Class 2A) Clear Lake (14-0).

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