Photo by Samantha Davis. Minneota's Kiersyn Hulzebos drives toward the basket in the first half against Canby Friday night in Minneota. Hulzebos finished with a team-high eight rebounds in the Vikings' 61-27 win. 

MINNEOTA — In the final regular season game for both teams, the Minneota girls basketball team used an all-around balanced team effort on both ends of the court to defeat Canby 61-27 Friday night. Jaylyn Coequyt led the Vikings with 18 points on 82% field goal shooting.

Minneota built up a 15-point lead at halftime after a surge in the final minute of the half, and played an aggressive zone defense with strong rebounding to influence the win. The Vikings opened the second half on 15-0 run to build a 44-14 lead, and although Canby had spurts of good offensive momentum, it was too much of a deficit to fully overcome.

“We played really well tonight, both offensively and defensively, and especially rebounding,” Minneota head coach Alan Panka said. “That was one of the keys I told them tonight, was we’re going to sit in the zone, we’re going to be running and flying around trying to cover their shooters. We all have to rebound, and they did a really good job of that.”

Minneota finished with 46 total rebounds to Canby’s 22.

Along with Coequyt, who also had five rebounds, Sarah Gruenes finished with 14 points and five rebounds, while Eden Meagher tallied 10 points and seven rebounds. Kiersyn Hulzebos had a team-high eight boards, while Libby Sussner had another seven.

For the Lancers, Brynn Kockelman led the way with 8 points and three steals, while Ella Thovson followed with 6. Ava Danielson grabbed a team-high six rebounds.

Canby also has seen recent success, although coming off a 57-43 loss to Lakeview on Monday, and won four of its last six games prior to traveling to the Vikings’ gym on Friday.

“We’ve got two good seniors [Audrey Hentges and Josie Frank], they are great leaders,” Canby head coach Jeff Thovson said. “They are willing to speak up when it needs to be done, they come to work every day. Very happy with both of our seniors.”

The game went back-and-forth for a majority of the first half, until Minneota began to break away with a few minutes to go. Canby was limited in its offensive opportunities due to the Vikings’ defensive pressure. The Lancers were able to find a handful of good looks through the night, but shots weren’t falling.

Canby called an early timeout after Minneota jumped to a quick 4-0 lead after Gruenes hit a pair of free throws and Coequyt went up for a fast break layup with an assist from Hulzebos off a defensive rebound.

Canby’s Thovson drilled in a deep field goal from the top of the key out of the timeout to get the Lancers on the board.

“We know they [Canby] are a scrappy team. The last time we played them, I think it was a 6-point game, and it was down to the wire,” Panka said. “They do things well, they’re in the right places, and they make you work for everything you get.”

The Vikings’ zone defense however, flustered Canby and they collected three straight steals.

“We played a little bit of it [zone] last time. We’ve added a couple different looks on things that we needed to work on, and that worked tonight, too,” Panka said. “We switched pretty much every timeout, just to give them a different look and hopefully try to catch them off guard. The girls were up to the task of paying attention, as to what we were in at that given time.”

Coequyt hit back-to-back field goals to build a 10-3 Minneota advantage. She had 8 of Minneota’s first 10 points.

The Lancers went scoreless for a few minutes until Kockelman hit a free throw after being fouled.

Overall, Minneota shot 35% from the field on the night and limited Canby to 18%.

Meagher got an and-1 call after fighting down low and grabbing two consecutive offensive boards attempting a putback, while Gruenes gave the Vikings’ its first double-digit lead at 17-6 on the next possession after driving the lane.

Kockelman was an offensive spark for Canby, as she got a steal and sprinted the floor for an open layup to cut the Lancers’ deficit 17-8.

Canby started to build some late momentum with a few forced turnovers, and Thovson hit a pair of free throws to bring the game within 5 points, 17-12.

But, the Vikings quickly stopped the Lancers from continuing their rally and went on their own instead.

In the final minute and a half, Nevaeh Hennen went 4 for 4 at the free throw line, Claire Rost nailed a 3-pointer, Hulzebos drove the lane for a layup, and Gruenes hit a 3 from the top of the key at the buzzer to put Minneota up 29-14 going into the locker room.

Rost also had a team-high four steals.

Minneota ultimately put the game away at the start of the second half, exploding on a 15-0 run to build up a 44-14 advantage in the first three minutes.

“That’s what I told them when we were in the locker room. If we can have the first run, you can breathe maybe a little bit easier tonight,” Panka said. “If they [Canby] get the first run, we’re going to be in a dog fight. So, they came out of the locker room and did what they needed to.”

Gruenes had a pair of field goals, as did Coequyt to contribute to the start of the run.

One of Coequyt’s shots was made while saving the ball from a turnover and shot it from down on the floor as the shot clock ran down, to build excitement in the Minneota gym.

The Vikings remained in its zone defense and didn’t let up on any efforts to cruise the rest of the way to victory.

Before starting section tournament play next week, Minneota will host Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg for the Camden Conference championship on Monday at 7 p.m. in the main gym. The boys game will be played in the Auxiliary Gym.

The Vikings initially started the year winning four consecutive wins, and dealt with consistency troubles the rest of the way, but were able to maintain an above .500 record.

The Lancers saw a similar trend, with an up-and-down season. They began the year with three straight losses, but won the next four in a row after and have been on a good stride since.

Canby and Minneota will now await seeding for the Section 3A Tournament. The play-in first round for the teams awarded the seven to 10 seeds on the North and South divisions will take place Feb. 20.

Those who seed higher will begin play in the second round on Feb. 22. The semifinals and championship will take place at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall on Feb. 28 and March 6.

Canby (13-12) will be competing to avenge its quarterfinal loss from last year’s tournament. The Lancers were given the sixth-seed after an 8-16 regular season, and suffered a 63-42 loss to MACCRAY and were eliminated.

“We’ve just got to believe in ourselves,” Thovson said.

Minneota (16-10) will be looking to make another deep run. The Vikings last year, who was the North’s No. 1 seed after finishing the regular season 24-3, were section runners-up after making it to the title game and fell to Southwest Minnesota Christian 58-38.

“This last week, we’ve played probably our best ball of the season. This is exactly what you hope you’re doing when you get to this time of year,” Panka said. “All those games that you maybe didn’t do so well, that you wanted to win and didn’t quite pull out, the battles you’ve had throughout the season, and all the teams that you got to see have you ready for tournament time. You never know, anything can happen in any game.”