Hayes Center boys advance to D-2 state tourney

NORTH PLATTE -- Hayes Center will be making its third straight appearance in the boys state basketball tournament.

The Cardinals won their third consecutive district championship with an 83-65 victory over Sumner-Eddyville-Miller Tuesday night in the Class D2-5 District Final at North Platte High School.

Hayes Center, 21-2, trailed 20-15 after the first quarter. The Cardinals rallied to take a 40-39 lead at intermission, then outscored S-E-M 43-26 in the second half.

Tyler Rehbein led the winners with 23 points. Keifer Messersmith added 22 points and 2 steals. Tyler Clifford scored 13 points and grabbed 16 rebounds for the Cards to go with a team-high 3 steals. Brady Rosno had 12 points and 6 assists. Alex Wach and Michael Bishop also had 7 rebounds each.

Dylan Smith had 25 points to lead S-E-M, and Jake Rohde added 18 points.

Hayes Center head coach Louis Cuellar was very pleased with his team's effort.

"We knew going into the game that we were going to have to play one our best games of the season and we did just that," Cuellar said. "We started out a little sluggish, but we just dug our heals in and battled back.

"I am an extremely proud coach of this group of young men. We played great team basketball and the boys deserved their third straight district championship."

The Cardinals now go to work preparing for the Class D-2 Boys State High School Basketball Championships in Lincoln March 11-13. Hayes Center will try and improve on their back-to-back third place finishes at the past two state tournaments. The Cards were third in the Class D-1 state meet in 2008, and third in Class D-2 last season.

S-E-M, 19-5, has a shot at one of the two D-2 wild-card state tournament berths.

S-E-M boys.............20 19 15 11 -- 65

Hayes Center...........15 25 20 23 -- 83