Snow shovels made more frequent appearances than layup lines for the Aberdeen Roncalli and Oakes boys’ basketball programs this week, and it showed. 

The two teams combined for as many missed opportunities as there were points scored, but the host Cavaliers snuck out a 49-47 victory over the Tornadoes Saturday afternoon in the Cavalier Classic Finale at the Roncalli Gym Saturday evening.

With each team’s last in-person practice coming on Monday before the season’s first long-track winter storm descended on the region, the first half was, well, rusty for both squads.

“You could tell we hadn’t practiced since Monday,” said head coach Dan Gallagher. “That first half, we missed bunny after bunny and it seemed like the legs weren’t underneath us.”

That sentiment applied to both squads, neither of which could garner more than a five-point lead all night. Roncalli went into the break leading 22-18.

“It’s hard to get prepared for a game on one practice,” said Oakes coach Jeremy Skoglund admitted.

Things picked up a bit in the second half, but still, neither team was able to put together a game-sealing run, instead settling in for a back-and-forth battle.

“With Covid teaching us about Zoom, we were able to have some Zoom calls over the week and just go through what Oakes does and talk through some of that, so our guys came in prepared on the defensive end,” Gallagher said. “We were able to stop a lot of their actions, but at the same time, you can’t Zoom shooting, so that was a struggle for us.”

Oakes senior Xavier Vossler hit back-to-back layups to put the Tornadoes up 44-42 with under 53 seconds to play to set up what turned out to be the wildest minute of action in the game. After Roncalli missed an opportunity at the free throw line, Oakes did the same, missing two free throws up 44-43.

Roncalli senior Jayden Munroe then entered the chat.

The senior came in off the bench and improvised a give-and-go with Aiden Fisher off an inbounds play, then buried a 3-pointer to give Roncalli its biggest lead of the night with under 5 seconds to play.

“I was a little nervous at first, but when I saw I was wide open, I knew I could hit the shot,” Munroe said. 

Munroe’s heroics weren’t over. The 6-foot-3 lanky forward then got a hand on Oakes’ inbounds pass, snaring the ball and going to the free throw line to hit 3-of-4 free throws in the final 1.2 seconds to seal the win.

“I was shooting pretty good in warmups, so I was feeling it,” Munroe said. “I hadn’t shot a three all night but I knew if I shot it, it would go in.”

“There were some times (Jayden) was taken out of the game because I was seeing some things where maybe this guy would be better in this situation,” Gallagher said. “But give a lot of credit to Jayden. He didn’t let that affect him. He saw his opportunity at the end of the game. He did come in kind of cold off the bench, but hit his shot and came up huge.”

Those six points turned out to be most of Munroe’s scoring, as he finished with eight points for the Cavaliers. Maddox Miller tallied 19, while Darwin Gambler and Maddox May had six points apiece.

Vossler led Oakes with 15 points. Trey Skoglund added nine points, and Adler Paeper and Eddie Garza finished with eight apiece.

“We talked about a lot of things before the game as far as the keys we needed to do to win the game, and we left a lot of those keys on the table tonight,” Jeremy Skoglund said. “It was a hard-fought game by both teams. We turned out to be on the wrong side of it this time.”

Roncalli will host Groton Thursday in its final contest ahead of the Christmas break.

OAKES: Trey Skoglund 2 4-7 9, Roddek Schmit 1 0-0 3, Adler Paeper 2 4-8 8, Eddie Garza 4 0-0 8, Xavier Vossler 6 2-4 15, Noah Sundby 2 0-0 4. Totals 17 10-19 47.

ABERDEEN RONCALLI (1-1): Maddox Miller 8 1-2 19, Darwin Gambler 2 2-4 6, Aiden Fisher 0 1-3 1, Jayden Munroe 2 3-5 8, Caden Shelton 1 0-0 2, Brody Weinmeister 1 0-0 2, Zane Backous 2 0-0 5. Totals 18 9-16 49.

Oakes 13 18 29 47

Aberdeen Roncalli 10 22 27 49

3-pt FG – OAK 3 (Skoglund, Schmit, Voxxler); AR 4 (Miller 2, Munroe, Backous). Fouls – OAK 18; AR 21. Fouled out – OAK, Skoglund.