For 12th season in a row, DeLaSalle makes boys basketball state tournament

Already in the middle of a scoring run, DeLaSalle senior forward Isreal Moses stole the ball at the St. Thomas Academy end, ran the floor and finished with a one-handed jam.

The capacity crowd surrounding the Islanders home floor exploded.

"We always talk about putting gas in our tank," said DeLaSalle coach Todd Anderson, in his first season as head coach but his 25th season with the program. "And you can do that in many different ways.

"Sometimes he makes dynamic plays, and it happened to be one of them."

The basket was an early exclamation mark on a 65-46 victory for top-seeded DeLaSalle over second seed St. Thomas Academy in the Class 3A, Section 3 final Thursday at DeLaSalle. That makes a dozen consecutive section championships for the Islanders (24-5), ranked No. 3 in Class 3A by Minnesota Basketball News.

"It's better than any other one because it's on our home floor," said senior Nasir Whitlock.

Whitlock scored 10 of his team-high 16 points in the second half.

The Cadets held a lead for much of the first half, thanks to senior Michael Kirchner starting the game 5-for-5 from three-point range. Kirchner ended with a game-high 26 points.

But DeLaSalle responded with a 16-2 run before the half, thanks in part to junior Jaden Morgan's trio of three-pointers that helped the Islanders to a 31-23 lead at the break. DeLaSalle played consistent defense throughout, Anderson said, and eventually pulled away.

The loss ended an 18-game winning streak for the Cadets (23-6), ranked No. 5 in Class 3A.

"I think at the end of the first half, they just made a couple of shots," Cadets coach Khalid El-Amin said. "We got a little bit tired in the second half. I think we just really ran out of gas."