Pequot Lakes Boys’ Basketball Books 4th Straight Trip to State Tournament

If Pequot Lakes boys’ basketball is anything, it’s consistent. On Friday, for the fourth straight season at the University of Minnesota Duluth, the Patriots took down Esko to get another trip to the Class AA state tournament.

When you see the same opponent time after time after time, it’s only natural for rivalries to spur. That’s exactly the case between Pequot Lakes and Esko.

“We know they’re always going to be tough,” said Pequot Lakes boys’ basketball senior guard Harrison Kennen. “They’re always really hard in the paint and they’re always very scrappy. They’re just like us, basically, but we just try to pull through in the end.”

Tack on the stakes – with a Section 7AA title hanging in the balance – and Pequot Lakes had all the motivation they needed facing Esko, who took the regular season match-up 58-50 over the Patriots.

“We’re used to all the talk,” said senior guard Ethan Quale. “Their student section is brutal. On their barstool, they’re always talking. We never say anything, we let our game do the talking.”

“We had 20 turnovers that game and we still were there,” added junior guard Blake Spiczka. “We knew if we took care of the ball, kept our composure, we had a shot.”

Pequot Lakes trailed 27-31 at halftime, but thanks to their stifling defense, the Patriots found a way to not only match Esko’s physicality, but also surpass it.

“Defense wins championships,” Spiczka said. “If we get a couple of stops, it leads to motivation for us to go get a couple buckets down the stretch. We play more bodies than a lot of teams, so if we can wear them out just by running the floor, getting stops, turnovers, then I like our chances.”

Thanks to a familiar result at a familiar venue in the University of Minnesota Duluth, Patriots boys’ basketball now find themselves in yet another familiar spot – the Class AA state quarterfinals. And the boys know how stark the difference is both in competition and in playing at the spacious Target Center.

“It’s a real big difference in the depth perception,” Kennen said.

“When I was a sophomore, you air ball four times in a row,” said Quale. “It’s like, ‘What’s going on?’”

The Patriots know how special it is to make four straight trips to the state tourney. However, the boys are looking to take the next step and improve upon their three past trips, where they fell in the quarterfinals each time.

“If we can just understand that we’ve been there and we know what’s like to lose … You kind of get sick of losing in the first round,” said Spiczka.

“We have to come out hot right away and be ready to go to be able to have a chance in the quarterfinals against Waseca,” Quale stated.

The 23-7 Patriots drew the seven seed for the Class AA state tournament. They will face 30-0 second-seeded Waseca on Tuesday night at the Target Center.