Western Wins Home Thriller Over Sioux Falls Christian

Hull, Iowa — Western Christian wrapped up the regular season with an 80-78 overtime win on the home floor over Sioux Falls Christian Thursday night.

Tyson Boer hit a corner three from the right side at the buzzer to give the Wolfpack the overtime win. The end of regulation was just as dramatic with the Chargers Xavier Van Beek hitting a buzzer beating three from deep behind the arc off the right elbow as regulation expired. Prior to that Ty Van Essen had dropped a free throw to complete an and one to tie the score at 70. Wyatt Gaulker then converted his opportunity at a three point play following a steal to give Western the lead at 73-70 with :09 seconds left to set up Van Beeks heroics for the Chargers that sent the game into overtime.

In the extra frame Western scored first on a pair of free throws by Ty Van Essen who went 4 of 4 at the line in the overtime. Van Beek provided the offense for Sioux Falls Christian dropping a three and hitting 1 of 2 free throws to put the Chargers up by one until the buzzer beater by Boer gave the Wolfpack their 16th win of the season.

At the end of the first quarter Western led 21-17 and pushed that to a 40-30 halftime lead. in the second half the Chargers offense caught fire as they scored 22 points in the third quarter to pull to within 54-52. It was a back and forth game after that and the stage was set for the dramatic finish to regulation and then overtime.

In a game that featured big offense both teams had four players in double figures. Western got a game high 24 from Ty Van Essen. Tyson Boer hit for 18 all from behind the arc. Wyatt Gaulker knocked down 15 with Eli Van Essen netting 12. The Chargers were led by Xavier Van Beek with 23 and Tyler Prins with 19. They were joined in double figures by Noah Van Donkersgoed with 14 points and Brooks Nelson with 13.

With the win Western closes the regular season at 16-4 with Sioux Falls Christian the top ranked team in their class in South Dakota now 13-3. Next action for the Wolfpack come with the tournament opener next Thursday. They will host the winner of Monday’s Sheldon at Central Lyon quarterfinal game.

Comments from Head Coach Derek Keizer:

What a great game to be a part of! Both teams battled all night!

They made a bigtime shot at the end of regulation. We didn’t execute it as well as we would have liked, but give credit to Xavier Van Beek for hitting that shot on the road to force overtime.

We just beat a really good team. Prins and Van Beek are terrific basketball players.

We were locked in defensively in the first half. They picked us apart for awhile in the second half but we found ways to get stops down the stretch.

I thought our guys showed a ton of resiliency all night. Things weren’t going our way but we kept grinding and believing. We had a number of players make huge plays down the stretch, really proud of our team for their fight they’ve shown all year.

Wyatt Gulker attacked the basket and found Tyson in the corner. Tyson hit a big shot in a bigtime moment. That’s exactly what you want in your senior leader.

The game was great, the crowd was big and fans were getting into it, just a very fun night of high school basketball.