RAPID CITY — The Cavs are consolation champs.

No. 8 St. Thomas More defeated No. 6 Cheyenne-Eagle Butte, 63-40, in Saturday’s consolation championship at the Class A state boys basketball tournament. The Cavaliers, under first-year head coach Tony Young, head its season with a record of 19-6.

“That’s a good Cheyenne-Eagle Butte team,” said STM head coach Tony Young. “We started off really hot and I thought we were going to kind of run them out of the gym and then it turned into a dogfight just like we expected.”

The Cavaliers picked up right where they left off Friday after a 94-92 double overtime win against Groton Area in the consolation semifinals. STM grew an 11-2 lead in the first three minutes of the game Saturday, extending the lead by as much as 13 in the opening quarter after a Wyatt Gylten 3-pointer.

STM carried that consistent offense into halftime with a 31-20 lead over the Braves.

“It was big,” Gylten said of the consolation championship. “Coming in losing to Sioux Falls Christian, obviously bummed us out a little bit. Getting here is a big thing and is a hard thing to do. We stepped up, won two games and we did what we could do.”

Gylten finished the consolation championship with a game-high 17 points, 11 rebounds, four assists and two blocks. The 6-foot-4 senior also hit 4-of-6 shots from 3-point range in the win.

St. Thomas More's Baron Slusarski goes up for a rebound over top of Cheyenne-Eagle Butte's Levi Elk Nation as St. Thomas More's Noah Wald looks on in the 5th-place game of the Class A boys state tournament on Saturday at Summit Arena at The Monument in Rapid City. (Matt Gade / 605 Sports)

“He’s going to go play at the next level and at this tournament, he showed it,” Young said of Gylten. “He’s had some moments this year where we kind of questioned if he was ready for that, but boy, three games in a row. That’s proof that he’s ready for it.”

A seesaw third quarter kept a steady double-digit lead for the Cavaliers, with Noah Wald connecting from long range at the buzzer to increase the STM lead to 14 heading into the final frame.

The Cavs broke the game open in the fourth quarter outscoring the Braves 17-10 to secure the win and the consolation championship.

STM led the whole way and outrebounded CEB 40-24 in the game, including 13 offensive rebounds, taking advantage of a rare size mismatch for the Cavs.

“That was our emphasis, we knew we finally had size on a team,” Young said of the rebounding. “It’s been awhile since we were the bigger team with our 6-3 and 6-4 guys. Having that size, we really emphasized the rebounds and Max really cleaned up the house the first half.”

The Cavs also held CEB to just 20.8% from 3-point range, limiting a dangerous lineup from beyond the arc.

“That was the whole game, because they can go off,” Young said of CEB’s 3-point shooting. “They have seven shooters. I think their big boy is the only one that doesn’t cast a lot of three’s so they have seven or eight guys that just shoot it, and when they get hot it’s over.”

St. Thomas More's Max Speed battles his way to the basket through a trio of Cheyenne-Eagle Butte defenders during the 5th-place game of the Class A boys state tournament on Saturday at Summit Arena at The Monument in Rapid City. (Matt Gade / 605 Sports)

But it was the consistent offense throughout the contest that pushed STM to its fourth boys basketball consolation championship.

Broeden Sales had 11 points, five rebounds and two steals for STM, Baron Slusarski added 10 points, Max Speed hauled in nine points and 14 rebounds, including six offensive boards, while Ashton Paulsen collected six points in the win.

CEB’s Levi Elk Nation led with 11 points, five rebounds and three assists, Damien Clown added eight points, three rebounds and three steals while Austin Johnson had six points in the loss. The Braves end their season with a record of 21-5.

Young says he was proud of the way his team, especially the seniors, performed and had fun throughout the tournament.

“How much fun the kids had,” Young said on what he’ll remember about the weekend. “You come here and you get a consolation championship coming in as the eight-seed. (Class) A is a stacked population of teams, especially those top-4 teams are so tough. So to come in as an eight-seed and leave with fifth place and get two wins, not many teams get to have two wins at a state tournament every year.

“Buzzy (Wyatt) stepped up, all those seniors stepped up and we hit some shots and kind of snuck away with it. I couldn’t be happier with the way they ended the season.”