Top seeds Annandale, Esko advance to 2A basketball final

Annandale survived Friday with an 81-76 semifinal victory over Caledonia, but for a second consecutive game in the Class 2A boys' basketball tournament, the top-seeded Cardinals made sure there was plenty of drama at Target Center.

Two nights after a grueling victory over New London-Spicer, Annandale flexed its offensive muscle early in building a 13-point halftime lead.

Then the Cardinals struggled to close.

Caledonia cut the lead to three points with 3 minutes, 48 seconds remaining and was within striking distance the rest of the way.

But Annandale made its free throws, and hot-shooting Caledonia cooled off. In the end, the Cardinals did just enough to advance to their first-ever state title game.

"We've been in a lot of positions like that this year," junior guard Chase Knickerbocker said. "We played in a tough conference. … We're used to battling, and that really prepared us."

Knickerbocker scored 24 points — 17 before halftime — and senior Matt Miller added 21.

It was all Annandale early, as Knickerbocker hit five early three-pointers to pace a Cardinals offense that could seemingly do no wrong through 18 minutes.

But Miller, the trigger man for Annandale's offense, fouled out with 6:18 remaining, and the momentum swung to Caledonia. An 11-point lead quickly shrunk to three, and Annandale had to slow the pace and draw fouls to seal the victory.

"I couldn't even watch. I looked away on half the free throws," Miller said of the closing minutes. "I was nervous. … Goodness, now I know what my mom feels like."

Esko 56, Fairmont 43: After shoddy free throw shooting nearly cost Esko a victory in Wednesday's Class 2A quarterfinals, the Eskomos were well aware of what needed to improve if it were to beat Fairmont in the semifinals.

"We took the day off to work on free throws," said 6-7 leading scorer Kory Deadrick. "We almost lost to East Grand Forks. We knew couldn't win in the tournament if we couldn't hit free throws."

For the first nine minutes or so, it appeared that Esko's problems were not solved. Even though Fairmont's Mitch Pfingsten, a 2,700-point career scorer, was shooting poorly, the Cardinals built a 21-9 lead.

Deadrick turned the Eskomos' fortunes with a series of three-pointers late in the first half. Esko cut the deficit to 27-23 by halftime and carried the momentum into the second half, outscoring Fairmont 33-16.

"I consider myself the third-best three-point shooter on this team," said Deadrick, who finished with a game-high 21 points. "So when I started making those, the other guys knew they could, too."

The other guys were Casey Staniger, who added 18 points, including 10 of 12 from the free throw line, and Marc Peterson, whose short jumper gave the Eskomos the lead for good, 32-31, early in the second half.

Esko will face Annandale for the championship at 2 p.m. Saturday in a rematch of the 2013 third-place game. Annandale won that game on a last-second shot, 59-58.