RONAN -- On Saturday night the Plains Horsemen and St. Regis Tigers faced off in the boys basketball District 14C championship game. St. Regis came out of the gates hot before Plains settled in and eventually claimed the District 14C title with a 55-45 win.
In the first quarter, the Tigers came out looking like the team to beat after Nicholas Day scored four of his 11 total points in the quarter. After one, St. Regis took a 10-7 lead into the second quarter. After scoring only seven points in the first quarter, the Horsemen nearly doubled that with a 13-point second quarter to tie the game at 20 heading into the locker room.
In the second half, the Plains offense continued to stay hot while the defense did its job on the other end. In the third quarter, Plains scored 18 points compared to St. Regis' six. In the fourth quarter, St. Regis' offense came alive and scored 19 points behind seven points from Day. However, that wasn't enough to come back as Plains scored 17 fourth-quarter points of its own to take the win.
"Just like (Friday's) game we start out with 20 points at the half and both times we played that team before we came from behind and finished at the end and won by double digits," said Plains head coach Tyrel Allen. "These guys have the mental toughness to get through, we turned the ball over a lot less and rebounded well."
As a team, Plains went 19 for 44 from the field and 2 for 7 from 3-point range. The Horsemen also picked up 11 more points from the line on 16 attempts. St. Regis shot 13 for 47 from the field, 4 for 11 from beyond the arc and 7 for 13 from the stripe.
Treydon Brouillette led all scorers with 18 points on 4-for-10 shooting from the field and 2 for 4 from deep.
"It feels awesome," said Allen. "Actually, we were talking about it, I don't know the last time Plains was a district champion. So, this means a lot to the boys to finish out after having an undefeated district run. It's a good way to finish this part of the season."
"I think the big thing I look at going into divisionals is it puts us on the side of the bracket that I think is more favorable for us. We have had a couple tough games, but I think that looking at what we're going to go play with, we can compete with anybody in the state," he added. "So, I look forward to the competition next weekend."
