Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

WEST BRANCH – It’s no secret that the success of the West Branch basketball team is tied directly to the offensive production of Delaynie Luneckas and August Palmer.

Considering the duo has accounted for more than 60 percent of the scoring for the Bears this season that is a fairly easy assessment.

It is also well known that to win in the postseason a team must get contributions from everyone.

That is exactly what West Branch had on Tuesday.

Luneckas and Palmer combined for 37 points but the Bears got big plays from every player to hit the court in a 63-62 overtime win over Wilton (14-8) in a wild Class 2A, Region 6 quarterfinal in West Branch.

“It’s super great to see people step into their role and come up with big plays,” Luneckas said. “Tonight, I think we were all level-headed and did our jobs well.”

The list of West Branch contributors was long on Tuesday.

Sophomore Kylie Pickett had five three-pointers and 17 points.

Junior Sadie Smith had 10 rebounds and a game-saving blocked shot at the buzzer.

Alyse Klinkkammer hit a pair of big threes and joined junior Avery Schultes in shadowing Wilton standout Kelsey Drake.

The list goes on and on.

“I just felt like we were going to have to get key stops,” West Branch coach Jarod Tylee said. “We were going to have to get some stops and get people to make big shots. Aly had a big shot, Sadie made a big play and you know that you are going to need big plays in a game like this.”

The win was the second in three meetings for West Branch (15-8) over Wilton this season and sends the Bears into the Region 6 semifinal where it will see another River Valley Conference South Division rival for a third time this season.

West Branch will travel to sixth-ranked Regina on Friday for a 7 p.m. matchup with a spot in the Regional final on the line.

“It feels great, I was super excited after that game but even before I got off the court I was thinking about the next one,” Luneckas said. “This was amazing but we need to move on to the next one.”

Before West Branch could think about Regina it had to get past Wilton in a wild, back-and-forth thriller.

Wilton had runs of 8-0 and 11-0 on Tuesday and West Branch had bursts of 9-0 and 16-3.

West Branch led by as many as nine, the Beavers by as many as 11.

Both teams had a 22-point quarter.

Yet the game came down to a single point.

“It was crazy,” Klinkkammer said. “It’s a once in a lifetime feeling to win a game like that.”

West Branch led by as many as nine in the first half and was up 27-21 at halftime.

Wilton opened the second half on a 11-3 run and took its biggest lead of the game at 43-32 with 1:15 left in the third quarter.

West Branch answered with a 9-0 run to close the third and open the fourth quarter.

Trailing 46-41 with under six minutes to play West Branch scored 16 of the next 19 points and led 57-49 with under a minute to play.

Klinkkammer tied the game at 46 with her second three-pointer of the game with 5:04 left and Picket gave the Bears a 53-49 lead with her five triple with 2:30 remaining.

“Our coaches flat out tell us they are going to double August they are going to double Delaynie so we all have to be ready to shoot,” Klinkkammer said. “That’s what we work on every day in practice.”

Wilton would go away.

The Beavers took advantage of four consecutive missed free throws by West Branch in the final 82 seconds and tied the game at 58 on a driving jumper by Charlotte Brown with 7.1 seconds left to force overtime.

“I wish we would have shot free throws better and we wouldn’t have had to get to that point but we made the plays when we needed to, whether that was a defensive stop, a rebound, a free throw, a shot or whatever,” Tylee said. “I’m proud of our kids, that’s kind of how they have been all year kind of up and down but always fighting until the final buzzer.”

Luneckas took over in the extra session, scoring all five West Branch points in overtime including the go-ahead basket on a jumper in the lane with 41 seconds left.

Luneckas finished with 21 points and 17 rebounds in her final home game.

“I was just happy to see her step up when we needed her to step up,” Tylee said. “She did what I wanted her to do, she hung around the basket, she got big rebounds when we needed her to, made key shots when we needed her to and kept us alive there at the end.”

Smith came up with perhaps the biggest play of the game blocking a shot by Kelsey Drake just before the buzzer.

Drake finished with 22 points and seven rebounds and Ella Caffery had 20 points and 11 rebounds for the Beavers.

Brown had 11 points and 14 boards.

“We had to get back down to the basics,” Smith said. “We had to rebound, box out and all of that. I think we really took that to heart and came out with a new mindset and delivered what coach wanted us to.”

Wilton                          10  11  22  15  4  –  62

West Branch              16  11   9   22  5  –  63

West Branch (63) – Sadie Smith 1-5 0-2 2, Alyse Klinkkammer 2-6 1-2 7, Kylie Pickett 6-15 0-1 17, Delaynie Luneckas 9-19 3-10 21, August Palmer 6-12 0-0 16, Madeline Stout 0-2 0-0 0, Avery Schultes 0-4 0-0 0, Totals 24-63 4-15 63.Wilton (62) – Mallory Lange 2-8 0-0 6, Lauren Thompson 1-3 1-2 3, Ella Caffery 9-16 2-3 20, Charlotte Brown 4-10 2-4 11, Kelsey Drake 5-12 12-14 22, Hayley Madlock 0-4 0-0 0, Totals 21-53 17-23 62.

Three-point field goals – WB 11-26 (Klinkkammer 2-3, Pickett 5-13, Palmer 4-6, Stout 0-2, Schultes 0-2), WIL 3-11 (Lange 2-7, Thompson 0-1, Caffery 0-1, Brown 1-1, Drake 0-1). Rebounds – WB 45 (Luneckas 17), WIL 40 (Brown 14). Turnovers – WB 16, WIL 16. Total fouls – WB 19, WIL 16. Fouled out – WB (Palmer), WIL (Lange). Technical fouls – None.

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