ABERDEEN — The De Smet Bulldogs closed out another season with a victory at Wachs Arena.

For the eighth time since 2016, De Smet played at the Class B boys basketball state tournament and captured the consolation championship Saturday over Aberdeen Christian, 56-45. 

“It’s fun to end the last day with a win,” De Smet coach Jeff Gruenhagen said. “It’s not the game you talked about playing when you started the season. But to know that we could get it done on the last day was fun.” 

In an entertaining back-and-forth contest, the Bulldogs used a 17-7 fourth-quarter margin to put away the Knights. Slayten Wilkinson led De Smet with 18 points and eight rebounds. Noah Luethmers added 11 points and six boards. Carter Wilkinson totaled 10 points and six rebounds. Grant Wilkinson posted nine points and 13 rebounds for De Smet, which broke away from a 41-41 tie and allowed Aberdeen Christian to score just four points in the final seven minutes. 

“We knew that they were a long team, really athletic,” Gruenhagen said. “They got up and in the first half I think they got a ton of offensive rebounds, second-chance shots. We had to try to weather that and maybe box out a little bit better.”

Aberdeen Christian’s Brooks Jett totaled 19 points and 15 rebounds. Luke Kaiser added 18 points and 11 boards. Dylan Hofer had six points and five boards. 

The game was tied eight times and featured seven lead changes. The Knights built a five-point lead early in the second quarter, but De Smet went into halftime with a 32-28 advantage. 

The lead continued to switch hands in the third quarter, with Jett evening the score at 41-41 on a 3-point play before De Smet pulled away in the final period. 

“That was a very athletic team we just played,” Grant Wilkinson said. “Pretty good shooters. Pretty good drivers. I feel like we have the same thing. But it’s just a well-fought game. It could have gone either way.”

Wilkinson, a 6-foot-10 all-state center, was held below his season average. But the future SDSU offensive lineman again faced multiple defenders in the paint, which allowed other Bulldogs to step up. 

“Every night for us has kind of been a different guy,” Gruenhagen said. “Grant is always the dude cleaning it up. We follow him, but everybody else knows their roles and they’re really capable of scoring. It’s fun to see them get out and share the ball.”

“I don’t think Grant had that many points today until maybe towards the end and it took us a while to get going again to be willing to get it,” Gruenhagen said. “They did a good job of keeping two guys, boxing him out. But huge for Slayten to keep bouncing back when they were not even guarding him for a while.” 

Wilkinson singled out Slayten Wilkinson, Kolby Sinclair, Luethmers and Coy Van Regenmorter for contributing to the win. 

“I just tell them to get backside because I am getting double teamed,” Grant Wilkinson said. “They don’t watch that backside dump guy, and all three games of the tournament they’re wide open down there. Teams don’t recognize that, but we get quite a few points from it every game.”

De Smet finished the season with a 21-5 mark. Aberdeen Christian finished the season with a 21-5 record.