Photo by Samantha Davis. Minneota's Brody Larson (4) and Murray County Central's Cayden Veldhuisen (right) dive for a loose ball in the second half at the Fastbreak Holiday Tournament at Southwest Minnesota State University Tuesday afternoon. The Rebels defeated the Vikings 68-31.

MARSHALL — The Murray County Central boys basketball team is ending 2024 with a dominant 68-31 victory over Minneota at the final day of the Fastbreak Holiday Tournament at Southwest Minnesota State University Tuesday afternoon. Gavin Gillette led the Rebels with 16 points and went 7 for 7 at the free throw line.

The Rebels built a 13-point lead by halftime, and they limited the Vikings to just 11 points in the second half through a strong defensive effort to put the game away early on.

“We talk about this as the first season, going into 2025 as the second season, and the third season as the playoffs. For us to be at 6-2, we’re very proud of what the guys have accomplished at this point,” MCC head coach Tim Cariveau said. “For this game specifically, defensively, I thought we were much more connected. We communicated better and we rebounded better.”

Along with Gillette, who also had a team-best four steals, Aidan Swenson finished with 14 points and led with nine rebounds, and Maxwell Miller followed with 11 who shot a team-high three 3-pointers.

For Minneota, Lucas Rybinski led with 7 points, and Lincoln Jerzak had a team-high five rebounds.

Minneota has now dropped four games in a row, and MCC continues to make strides after winning five of its last six.

The Rebels surged ahead in the second half, opening up on a 23-0 run and kept Minneota scoreless for 9 minutes. The game went to running clock for the last few minutes once MCC broke off a 35-point edge.

“I think it started with that first half — We had good ball pressure,” Cariveau said. “When that is sustained for 20 or 25 minutes, it gets tough on teams.”

The Rebels shot efficiently from the arc throughout the game, and started the second half with 3-pointers from a handful of players including Gillette, Miller, Tristan Behrends and Carter Hanson.

MCC shot 50% from the field, 35% from the 3, and 80% at the charity stripe. It held Minneota to 27-25-56 splits.

A jump shot from Dugan Kluis eclipsed a 30-point lead for MCC at 50-20, which eventually became a 40-point advantage at 66-26 after Hanson sank a 3-pointer right after Joey Lacek got Minneota out of its scoring drought.

“Stack up the little wins and keep focused on the details, not on the clock and not the score,” Cariveau said regarding how his team held its large lead.

The Vikings grabbed an early lead to start the game, but the Rebels caught up and never trailed again once they took their first 8-5 lead. They began to create more of a cushion midway through the first half by flustering Minneota with their defense.

Both teams played a full-court press on one another throughout a majority of the game.

The afternoon began with an early Minneota 5-0 start with a 3-pointer and midrange jumper from Rybinkski.

At the half, Gillette had 11 points for MCC and Rybinski had 7 for the Vikings.

Cariveau called a timeout to try to stop the Vikings’ run. Swenson got the Rebels on the board right after the reset as MCC also began their press.

With running the press, both teams were able to find success with it, but also had some occasional challenges and committed turnovers because of it.

But, MCC forced a few more turnovers through its fast defense, which pressured the Vikings.

Minneota had 19 turnovers on the day, 10 of which came from Rebels’ steals, to MCC’s 11.

Hanson hit a 3 for MCC to tie the game at 5 points, followed up with another 3-pointer from Hudson Schryvers to give the Rebels their lead.

Schryvers immediately grabbed a steal on defense which resulted in a field goal from Swenson off an offensive rebound, and the Vikings called a timeout with a 13-7 trail.

The Rebels finished with 27 rebounds and the Vikings tallied 24.

MCC’s defense remained strong, and Miller made a 3-pointer to give the Rebels their initial double-digit 20-10 advantage.

As the first half was winding down, Minneota’s Rybinski crashed the lane and beat the Rebels’ defense with a cross over in the lane for a left-handed layup, yet Gillette returned the favor and got the and-1 on the opposite end. He made the extra point as MCC went into the locker room up 33-20.

MCC brought in its reserves to get some playing time with a few minutes of game play to go.

The Rebels improve to 6-2 and will look to keep its good momentum going when it opens the new year on Friday at Adrian-Ellsworth (2-6) with a 7:30 p.m. tip off.

“[We will] take what we can learn from these two games over this Christmas break especially, and then put it all into practice,” Cariveau said.

Minneota (3-5) will aim to get back in the win column when it returns home to host Wabasso (5-3) at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday.