By Reagan Hoverman

It’s been slightly more than 72 hours since the top-seeded Prescott Cardinals boys basketball team got knocked out of the playoffs in the second round at home against the Osceola Chieftains. Prescott head coach Nick Johnson is still in shock about how the season abruptly ended.

For weeks, Prescott players and coaches spoke about the high expectations for this iteration of the Cardinals basketball program. Talks of a gold ball (state championship), Madison, the Kohl Center, and making a deep playoff run were no stranger to Johnson’s varsity squad.

Those Prescott conversations weren’t an attempt to be cocky. Instead, they were realistic expectations for a team that spent the entire season ranked in the top-10 of the Wissports Division 3 coaches poll. In the final poll of the regular season, Prescott was ranked as the thirdbest team in the state.

Their resume was – at the very least – the third-best Division 3 resume in the state and could easily be considered the best. Prescott posted an astonishing 13-1 record in the Middle Border Conference this season, a MBC that included three top-10 teams in the state with Prescott, Saint Croix Central and Baldwin-Woodville all being ranked.

The Cardinals also beat multiple Division 1 or Division 2 opponents, including River Falls (D2) and Stevens Point (D1) on the road. This was supposed to be one of the best seasons in Prescott history. Instead, it ends in a one-anddone playoff exit against Osceola. Johnson spoke about what went wrong in that lone playoff game.

“Give them credit, they came out and threw the first five punches,” Johnson said. “We just didn’t show up. We came out flat and by the time we looked at the scoreboard, we were down 18 points. To go down that much in the first half against a team that brought their Agame, it’s tough to climb back.”

Johnson alluded to the first 10 minutes of the game which proved to be the most disastrous of the entire season. With eight minutes left in the first half, Prescott trailed 28-12. Everything that could go wrong for the Cardinals, did go wrong. Jordan Malmlov, Prescott’s star junior point guard, got off to one of his slowest starts of the season. Prescott turned the ball over, their defense couldn’t get a stop, and quickly the Cardinals knew they were in serious trouble.

While the struggles offensively were significant, the defensive issues might have been more costly. Johnson spoke about his roster not being able to get a stop throughout the game.

“We thought we had our defense turned around,” Johnson said. “You talk about momentum going into the playoffs, we beat River Falls, we beat Stevens Point, our defense won us those games. We play the first half against Osceola and we went back to a month ago where we couldn’t get any stops, we couldn’t stop anybody off the dribble. They did whatever they wanted.”

Osceola’s 81-point performance against Prescott was the only time that the Chieftains had reached the 80-point mark this entire season. They had only reached the 70-point mark three times the entire season. Both Prescott and Osceola played unusual games. Prescott’s dominant offense struggled, and Osceola’s lackluster offense was dominant throughout the

"It's one of those games where

I could coach for the next 30 years and this one, I'll never forget. That pain will never go away. This is a special group of kids, and never in a million years did I think it would end

the way it did."

Prescott Coach Nick Johnson UPSET

From Page B-1

contest.

“We knew Osceola was just good enough (to win) if we didn’t play well,” Johnson said. “We couldn’t make a shot. A team that shoots the ball very well, when we come out flat, we’ve got to hang our hat on defense, and we weren’t able to do that. We gave up 44 points in a half to an Osceola team that averages probably 50 a game.”

At halftime, Prescott trailed 34-44. With 12 minutes to go in the second half, Prescott had trimmed the lead to one point, 52-51. The biggest reason Prescott got back into the game was the aforementioned Malmlov, who took the game over.

With under three minutes left in regulation, Prescott trailed 70-69. That’s when Malmlov buried a three-pointer from the top of the key giving the Cardinals a 72-70 lead. Osceola tied the game 72-72 with a layup by senior center Luke Haase with just over a minute to play.

A fadeaway mid-range jumper by Malmlov once again gave Prescott a two-point lead, 74-72, with one minute to play. With 30 seconds left, Haase was fouled and went to the free throw line. He made both to knot it up 74-74.

On the final possession, Malmlov missed a three-pointer and a mid-range jumper just before time expired. The junior offensive threat had two opportunities and missed both. In the four-minute overtime, Osceola outscored Prescott 7-0 to secure the 81-74 upset of the top-seeded Prescott Cardinals. Malmlov finished the game with 41 points on 15-36 shooting from the floor, including 6-20 from the three-point line.

“Jordan (Malmlov) got hot in the second half,” Johnson said. “He tried to will his way offensively to get us back in that game and win the game. I told our coaches, if we just had one other person make one or two big shots, just one or two, we would have won that game. The shots just didn’t fall.”

Prescott struggled offensively the whole game. Outside of Malmlov’s 41-point performance, the next leading scorer for the Cardinals was senior Justin Syverson with 13 points. Forward Dallas Wallin, who had regularly scored 20 points per game this season, had six total points against Osceola. Senior Aiden Russell had seven, senior Ben Rohl had two.

“It’s too bad that it ended that way,” Johnson said. “We did have high expectations. We did think that we could be playing for a state championship and make a run to Madison. And boom, we’re knocked out in the second round at home. It’s just hard to believe.”

By any standards, the Prescott boys had a successful season. A 22-3 overall record, including that loss to Osceola, a 13-1 record in the Middle Border Conference which led to a conference championship, ranked as one of the 10 best teams in the state throughout the year and went into the playoffs as a top seed in the Division 3 bracket.

Unfortunately for the Prescott players and fans, this season will always be remembered for that playoff game against Osceola. People will forget about the overall record; they will forget about huge non-conference wins against River Falls and Stevens Point. It will always be about that Osceola game.

“It’s unfortunate because players and fans won't remember a lot of (this season) because of the way it ended,” Johnson said. “We as coaches will, the players will eventually, we came a long way this year. We had our struggles, and we overcame a lot of them. We fixed a lot of them and in one half of basketball things fell apart.”

Johnson concluded his comments by speaking about how proud he is of this group of kids, his group of seniors, and all of the milestones that they reached this season. Even though Prescott lost in the second round of the playoffs, Johnson is proud of his kids.

“Right now, it’s tough to be happy with the season, but eventually we will,” Johnson said. “Time will heal that. I’m proud to be their coach and I love every one of them.”

Prescott junior Jordan Malmlov pulls up for a three-pointer during a game earlier this season against Saint Croix Central. In the second-round playoff game on Friday night, Malmlov had 41 points in the loss against Osceola. Photo by Reagan Hoverman