MIB derails Jamnick, Tower-Soudan

For the Tower-Soudan Golden Eagles, the third time was definitely not the charm.After a pair of close losses during the regular season, Tower-Soudan hoped to turn the tables o nMt. Iron-Buhl in the title game of the Section 7A high school boys basketeball tournament and earn the program’s first state tournament berth in nearly 60 years.But there would be no reversal, no revenge and no state tournament trip for the Golden Eagles.The top-seeded Rangers shut down Steve Jamnick, Tower-Soudan’s 6-10 center, and rolled to a 56-35 victory in the March 11 contest at Duluth.Jamnick, double or triple-teamed for much of the night, was held to 11 points and the Golden Eagles shot just 18 percent from the floor.The Rangers, meanwhile, hit at a 52 percent clip and nailed a series of three-pointers in the second and third quarters to pull away.MIB improved to 25-2 and advanced to play defending Class A champion Russell-Tyler-Ruthton in the opening round of the tournament, while Tower-Soudan finished 23-4, with three of the four defeats coming against the Rangers.Tower-Soudan got off to a fast start, leading 5-2 as Jamnick scored the Golden Eagles’ first five points.But that was all the big man would get for the rest of the half.A three-pointer by Jesse Quick gave T-S a 10-9 lead after one quarter, but the Rangers took control of the game in the second.The teams traded three-pointers to start the stanza, then MIB outscored the Golden Eagles 10-2 the rest of the way.T-S went cold from the outside while the Rangers’ Dan Lanari buried a triple at the buzzer to make it 22-15 at the half.Quick, who led T-S with 15 points, cut the lead to four points with a three-pointer to open the second half, but that was the Golden Eagles’ lone highlight of the final two quarters.The patient Rangers picked apart the T-S zone, getting open looks by Lanari and Zach Rowe, who had 11 of his 15 points in the second half.MIB shot a sizzling 10-for-14 in the half, and went on a 9-0 third quarter run that all but put the game away.The Rangers built a 16-point lead but T-S closed the gap to 12 - at 40-28 - by the end of the third quarter.But the double-digit lead was insurmountable for T-S, especially with D.J. Winfield handling point guard duties for the Rangers.The speedy, shifty sophomore played keep away with the Golden Eagles to start the final stanza, and killed more than a minute-and-a-half before T-S even got the ball.Winfield sank four buckets in the final quarter and the Rangers turned what was expected to be a down to the last second thriller into a blowout.Unable to get the ball to Jamnick inside, the Golden Eagles were forced to cast away from long distance, and they were ice cold.T-S was four-for-26 from three-point distance for the game.Lanari and Rowe had 15 points apiece to lead the Rangers, but MIB also had good balance as starters Winfield (nine points), Kyle Meglen (nine) and Gage Rautio (eight) all were close to double digits.The unsung hero for the Rangers may have been the 6-5 Meglen, who did the brunt of the defensive work against Jamnick.Jamnick added 13 rebounds to pick up a double-double for T-S, which finished a remarkable two-year run with a record of 48-6. The Golden Eagles fell one game short of the state tournament in both years.