Photo by Jeff Yoder / 2A quarterfinal photo gallery

Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

DES MOINES – Boyden-Hull entered the state tournament among the most balanced offensive teams in Class 2A.

The Comets put that trademark team approach on full display in their state tournament opener against Regina on Monday.

In case that wasn’t enough senior leading scorer Beau De Jongh added a monster individual performance for good measure.

De Jongh scored a game-high 25 points to lift fifth-ranked Boyden-Hull (23-2) to a 61-56 win over No. 8 Regina (20-3) in a 2A quarterfinal at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

“No one person on any team can do it all so it’s really nice to have those other guys that can step up when you need them to and makes the plays,” De Jongh said. “It’s just really nice to have a team full of athletes.”

All eight Boyden-Hull players that saw action on Monday scored as the Comets shot 59 percent from the field including 5-of-9 from 3-point range.

Keyton Moser added 11 points for Boyden-Hull which advanced to the state semifinals for the first time since 2013.

“Everybody came in and played their part,” Boyden-Hull coach Bill Francis said. “We played eight guys and everybody did a great job, everybody did the things they could do and didn’t try to do more.”

Regina fell into a 7-0 hole less than 90 seconds into the game and could never quite full recover.

The Regals led once, at 10-9 on a Luke Stein 3-point play that capped a 7-0 run with 2:06 left in the opening quarter but couldn’t overcome 43 percent shooting or the balanced Comet offensive approach.

“I thought it really killed us in the first half not getting back in transition and them getting a lot of early buckets to get us down,” Regina junior Masen Miller said. “Then we had to try to claw back out of that hole.”

Boyden-Hull led 15-13 after the opening quarter and took a 29-24 lead into halftime after Carter Francis hit a 3-pointer with 10 seconds left in the opening half.

The Comets held Miller to five first-half points on 2-of-8 shooting as the Regals shot just 43 percent for the game.

“They are a good defensive team and they played good help and stuck to their game plan of trying to get the ball out of my hands and deny me,” Miller said. “I got a few shots in the first half that just didn’t happen to go. I thought they were good looks they just didn’t go.”

Boyden-Hull entered with six players averaging six points or more per game.

On Monday only De Jongh and Moser had more than six but eight Comets made field goals with five different players hitting 3-pointers.

“They have seven or eight guys that can shoot the perimeter shot really well and that was a concern coming in,” Regina coach Jared Galpin said. “De Jongh king of got on a roll early so we switched to zone and just really tried to hope for an off shooting night for them, they hit some perimeter shots and that just presented a lot of challenges.”

De Jongh scored 11 of his game-high 25 points in the third quarter as Boyden-Hull slowly built a double-digit lead.

The 6-foot-3 DeJongh finished 7-of-12 from the field and 10-of-14 from the free throw line.

“They just kept pounding the ball in to De Jongh,” Galpin said. “They are a very challenging team to guard especially when they are hitting perimeter shots.”

The Comets led by as many as 15 with under four minutes to play before Regina mounted a furious fourth-quarter rally.

Regina got as close as four on a Bryce Barnett 3-pointer with 16 seconds left by Carter Francis hit a free throw and Regina couldn’t get another 3-pointer to fall.

“I’m very proud of how my team fought back,” Galpin said. “Down 12 in the fourth quarter we fought back and got it to four. I was very proud of their effort all season long and especially tonight we just kind of met up with a team that really played well tonight.”

Miller finished with a team-high 17 points and led Regina with four rebounds.

The junior point guard finished the season with 99 made 3-pointers.

“Our group is a tough group to beat,” Miller said. “We always fight back and play as hard as we can and we made a little run there at the end.”

Josh Heitritter had six points and seven points off the bench for Boyden-Hull while Spencer Te Slaa and Andrew Frick each had five points.

“It was really a team effort,” De Jongh said. “People came through at key moments and made some big plays.”

Regina                        13  11  11  21  –  56

Boyden-Hull               15  14  15  17  –  61

Regina (56) – Bryce Barnett 2-7 2-2 7, Masen Miller 7-18 1-1 17, Scott Arendt 2-4 0-0 5, Ashton Cook 4-7 0-0 9, Luke Stein 3-7 2-2 8, Joey Malony 0-2 0-0 0, Alec Wick 1-3 0-0 2, Patrick Clark 0-0 0-0 0, Jack Keller 0-1 0-0 0, Nick Wagner 4-5 0-1 8, Totals 23-54 5-6 56.

Boyden-Hull (61) – Brett Van Der Wilt 1-1 0-0 3, Carter Francis 1-3 1-2 4, Beau De Jongh 7-12 10-14 25, Spencer Te Slaa 2-4 1-3 5, Keyton Moser 5-7 0-0 11, Josh Heitritter 2-2 2-2 6, Andrew Frick 1-2 2-4 5, Tanner Te Slaa 1-3 0-0 2, Totals 20-34 16-25 61.

3-point field goals – ICR 5-20 (Miller 2-8, Barnett 1-3, Arendt 1-2, Cook 1-2, Stein 0-3, Molony 0-1, Wick 0-1), B-H 5-9 (Van Der Wilt 1-1, Francis 1-2, De Jongh 1-1, S. Te Slaa 0-1, Moser 1-1, Frick 1-2, T. Te Slaa 0-1). Rebounds – ICR 19 (Miller 4), B-H 30 (Moser, Heitritter 7). Assists – ICR 11 (Miller 3, Arendt 3), B-H 10 (S. Te Slaa 3). Turnovers – ICR 4, B-H 11. Total fouls – ICR 20, B-H 13. Fouled out – ICR (Arendt). Technical fouls – None.

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