Beulah’s Braylen Schirado gets fouled by Rugby’s Hudson Hager (3) as Levi Wentz (21) also defends during a Class A state qualifier on Saturday, March 14, at the Minot Municipal Auditorium. Mike Kraft/MDN

The Rugby boys basketball team slayed the beast that was Bottineau to get itself in a position to play for a spot in the state tournament for the first time since 2021.

Unfortunately, another beast that has wreaked havoc on the Panthers was waiting for them behind the next gate that they were unable to overcome.

Beulah continued both its string of success in state qualifiers as well as its head-to-head matchups with Rugby, running away with a 64-33 victory over the Panthers on Saturday, March 14, at the Minot Municipal Auditorium. The Miners improved to 3-0 in state qualifiers and punched their ticket to their fourth straight state tournament and third as a member of Class A. Beulah will be the No. 4 seed and plays a quarterfinal round game against No. 5 Wahpeton on Thursday, March 19, at 8:15 p.m. at the Fargodome.

“It never gets old,” Beulah coach Brandon Schirado said. “We knew we had a special group from the beginning and the other night was a disappointment, but we had to reload and get ourselves back together. I thought we put together a nice night tonight and it’s a special moment just because of this group of seniors and you can’t put it into words.”

The Miners and Panthers are no stranger to one another, meeting most years during the Dale Brown Hoopster Classic in late December. Beulah has had the upper hand as of late, winning its last three meetings with Rugby, all by at least 13 points. The Miners won this year’s regular-season meeting by 21.

Beulah (22-3) controlled the game from the opening tip, leading for all but the first 16 seconds. Braylen Schirado caught fire early, hitting the game’s first two 3-pointers and adding another at the end of the quarter, as the Miners jumped out to a 22-10 advantage. The Miners shot 47.1 percent from behind the 3-point line, with Braylen and Bensyn Schirado hitting seven of the team’s eight 3s.

The real advantage for the Miners came in the paint with Bennett Larson and Philip Weidner. The duo grabbed 24 of the team’s 35 rebounds and collected 12 on the offensive end, leading to 14 second-chance points. Larson finished with a double-double, pouring in 19 points and grabbing 11 boards.

“The time we’ve put in as a team since fourth and fifth grade playing together, it means absolutely everything,” Larson said. “We knew it was going to be hard since the beginning, but as long as we stick to the fundamentals and play as hard as we can, we knew we were going to get here.”

Larson’s first six rebounds were on the offensive glass, leading to 11 points in the first half.

“This game came down to rebounds,” Braylen Schirado said. “On Thursday, we got outrebounded by 11 and yesterday the biggest emphasis was that we had to box out and rebound. And we did. We cleaned up the boards tonight and outrebounded them by 16. If you’re only getting one shot every time down, and then you’re putting good ball pressure on them, it’s hard to score. We knew as soon as Bennett came back last year that we had the guys to clean the glass, and they did. That’s why we won. Rebounding is such a big thing toward winning.”

Rugby coach Travis Risovi said that the game was going to come down to winning the battle on the boards, which went to the Miners. Beulah outrebounded the Panthers 35-19.

“We talked about it since we knew we were going to play Beulah,” Risovi said. “We needed to box out and make sure we rebounded really hard and crashed the boards as a team. Especially when Brody (Berndt) got in foul trouble, we’re a little more undersized. We have some height still, but we’re a little undersized. Bennett’s a big boy and they just kind of handled us.”

The Miners were coming off a loss to Shiloh Christian in the Region 4 title game, just the third loss they’ve suffered this season. They scored a season-low 45 points in the process, snapping an 18-game winning streak. But playing in state qualifiers is nothing new to this group of Miners, just this time the opponent was different. Each of the past two years, Beulah punched its ticket to the state tournament by winning qualifiers against Bottineau.

“We’ve done this before,” Braylen Schirado said. “We’ve been down this road. We knew what we were doing. We have seniors and we don’t want this to be our last game. We’re not going hard in Friday practice, but we’re watching film and walking through what they’re going to do. It’s mental reps more than anything and you’re just getting ready and we were ready.”

The Miners locked down defensively to ensure their 20th trip to the state tournament. They nearly pitched a shutout in the third quarter, keeping the Panthers off the scoreboard until Rugby’s Hudson Hager hit a 3-pointer right before the buzzer. Beulah outscored the Panthers 12-3 in the third quarter and 24-14 in the second half.

Beulah came into Saturday’s state qualifier allowing just 53 points per game. Rugby was the 11th team the Miners have held under 40 points.

“I thought (the defense) was spot on,” Brandon Schirado said. “We had a general idea of what we were going to do and we knew we could take things away from them. We have the best scoring defense in the state and we take a lot of pride in that.”

Braylen Schirado and Larson led the Miners with a game-high 19 points. Bensyn Schirado joined them in double figures with 12 points. The Miners shot 52.2 percent from the field, never shooting worse than 41.2 percent in any quarter.

Hager was Rugby’s top scorer with 11 points.

The Panthers (15-10) came one win away from their first state tournament appearance since 2021. It was the closest they’ve come in Class A, losing in the Region 3 third-place game last year and losing in the quarterfinal round of regionals in 2024. With no seniors on the roster, Rugby brings back its full team next year and looks to continue its year-on-year improvement.

“I’m proud of the boys,” Risovi said. “It was a big leap from last year. We won seven games last year. We won 15 this year. They got that much better from last year and everybody on my team returns for next year, so now we put in the work to get that much better again and get to where we want to. We were one game short right now and this will be the fire that burns inside them and gets them back to work and hopefully next year we can change the outcome.”

Second-half comeback sends Turtle Mountain to state tournament

The Turtle Mountain boys basketball team wasn’t going to be denied its first trip to the state tournament since 2015 for the second time in as many games.

Following a last-minute loss to Dunseith in the Class A Region 3 Tournament title game, the Braves had a second chance to get to the state tournament on Saturday, March 14, against Dickinson Trinity. Trailing by nine at halftime, Turtle Mountain rallied in the second half for a 62-59 victory over the Titans in a state qualifier at the Minot Municipal Auditorium.

Bailyn Frederick led the Braves with 14 points and William Breland added 11. Turtle Mountain outscored Dickinson Trinity 17-7 in the third quarter to grab a 39-38 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

The Braves (18-6) won the battle on the inside, holding a 46-24 advantage in points in the paint. Turtle Mountain hit just one 3-pointer on 10 attempts. The Titans were 8-for-28 from distance, with Landon Knote hitting a game-high four. Knote finished with 14 points.

Emerson Simnioniw led the Titans (17-9) with 16 points.

Turtle Mountain will be the No. 7 seed and plays No. 7 seed Central Cass in the state quarterfinal round at 1 p.m. at the Fargodome.