Albany wins first game of 2025 Minnesota state boys basketball tournament
MINNEAPOLIS — Every team plays its best game against the Albany boys basketball team, but so far none have been good enough.
The Huskies beat Pelican Rapids 80-57 on Tuesday at Williams Arena in Minneapolis. Albany (30-0) will play Caledonia (29-2) at 6 p.m. on Friday at Williams Arena — its third year in a row making the second round of the tournament. Albany won the championship in 2023 and beat Minnehaha in the third-place game last year. This season Minnehaha (19-10) fell to Caledonia in the quarterfinal.
Albany senior point guard Zeke Austin’s uncle Brad King is the coach of the Warriors and he has three first cousins playing on the team: senior Mason King, freshman Grant King and senior Reid Klug.
“I’ve kind of always wanted to play them so if we play them it’s going to be fun, it’s personal,” Austin said smiling in the press conference following the Pelican Rapids game.
The Vikings (24-7) came into Tuesday as the eighth seed looking for blood. Six-foot, seven-inch junior forward Jack Welch attacked his job of guarding Albany’s star senior Sam Hondl of equal size with vigor. He was helped by a defender sliding across the paint to double team. It is a common strategy the Minnesota State-Moorhead commit and the Huskies have faced this year in the paint. But when a defender helps, that creates openings elsewhere.
“We were hoping — we know the big two and then 21 is also a really good player,” Pelican Rapids coach John Gullingsrud said mentioning senior Elliott Burnett by number. “So we're hoping the other guys wouldn’t play as well as they did. But yeah they did. They hit shots. (Ethan) Meyer early on, he found his way around the basket for some layups because he moves so well. So yeah, when they play that way, it's incredibly difficult Undefeated for a reason.”
Any different Husky is liable to score in double digits, giving Hondl and Albany’s other collegiate commit Zeke Austin plenty of assist opportunities.
“Ethan, he’s got a knack for finding open spaces and Braeden (Justin), that’s his role,” Albany coach Corey Schlagel said. “His job is to knock down shots on the perimeter.”
Justin went 5-7 from three, scoring 14 points and giving his team life in lulls. The junior’s total was two behind the leading Husky, Hondl. Austin also had 14.
Schlagel wasn’t particularly happy with his team’s performance starting each half. The team played “sluggish.” Albany outrebounded Pelican Rapids 32-25 and that carried the Huskies until they found their groove.
“A lot of times you see them midway through each half, they go on runs,” Gullingsrud said. “That’s a lot due to how physical they play — it kind of wears you down physically and mentally.”
The Vikings hoped to approach Albany’s defense with ball quick movement to try and bounce them out of position.
“But not even just their big guys are physical even all their guards are like 6’ 2”, big body kids,” sophomore guard Ethan Isaman said. “It makes it tough rebounding, everything down low.”
Meyer had 12 points on 100% shooting and Burnett was one point from double digits. Burnett made eight assists and Hondl had seven.
Welch led all scorers with 29 points on 13-21 shooting, mostly from the inside. Hondl and Meyer tag teamed guarding him and both ended the game with four fouls. Schlagel pointed out he was happier with how his team played in a halfcourt offense, but the Huskies had some fun fast breaks featuring a couple electrifying dunks from Hondl and some talented ball moment from Austin, Meyer and junior guard Brady Rueter.
It was also the Vikings’ second consecutive year playing in the tournament. Last year they bounced out of the consolation bracket in one game. Albany’s personnel discussed feeling more comfortable in the University of Minnesota's Barn after the experience of three years in a row at the state tournament. Several Huskies also competed to the semifinals of the 2024 Class 2A state football tournament.
Hondl expects opponents to continue to come with fire in the games on the weekend.
“It feels like every game deeper in the playoffs, the game gets more physical,” he said. “So we just got to keep handling that.”
Contact reporter Reid Glenn at rglenn@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Albany wins 2025 MN state boys basketball tournament quarterfinal
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