The main element that has been crucial during Aberdeen Christian’s winning streak, was definitely on display Thursday night at the Aberdeen Civic Arena.

The Knights held another foe to 40 points or less to win their ninth straight game, holding off Aberdeen Roncalli 47-40 in a conference boys’ basketball victory. Christian has allowed just one opponent more points than that during its current stretch and the Cavaliers found points hard to come by in the cross-town matchup.

Christian face-guarded Roncalli sharp-shooter Maddox Miller, who managed just three points before eventually fouling out late in the game. That defensive task went to Christian junior Konnar Furman, who chased Miller through screen after screen after screen all night long.

“I don’t think he stopped moving once,” Furman said. “That was kind of my responsiblity coming into the game, to shut him down, and I did everything I could to stop him.”

Furman did have some help in the process, whether it was from Brooks Jett or Luke Kaiser.

“A lot of help from my teammates,” Furman said, “helping me backside getting through the screens, especially Brooks up top, helping me trap him almost you could say.”

As a result, the Cavaliers fell behind early in the first half and were forced to play from behind nearly the entire way.

“They did a good job on him. Unfortunately, I didn’t think I did a good job getting or finding ways for him to get open. He worked his tail off trying to get open, we just didn’t really get him good looks,” said Roncalli coach Dan Gallagher. “It was unfortunate because when you work that hard, and you’re that good of a shooter, we need you to get looks. They’re length affected it. It seemed like there was a lot of times where we were going to get some good looks, and all of sudden, here they are closing out and we’re having to give a shot fake, and put the basketball back on the ground.”

While Furman only scored five points, he helped to prevent way more than that with his defensive performance.

“A lot of times the things that Konnar does doesn’t show up in the stat line. A shout out to him and Luke Kaiser, the two of them guys really held Maddox Miller down,” said Christian coach Aaron Moeller. “Maddox Miller is a great ball player and to hold him to three points, that’s just a credit to Konnar and Luke and the defense that they played tonight.”

Still, Roncalli stayed in touch thanks to the game-high 24 points from Keegan Stewart. The senior nailed five 3-pointers, including three in the final quarter as the Cavaliers erased a double-digit deficit.

“We knew coming in that they were going to faceguard one of us, but it had been a guard in all their other games, so we practiced for Maddox, we practiced that (Wednesday),” Stewart said. “So I knew I was going to have to step up and we were going to need other guys to step up, too. We did our part on offense, but defensively we couldn’t get it done.”

Roncalli eventually closed the margin down to 41-38 midway through the fourth quarter, but managed just two points the remainder of the game as Christian pulled away for the victory.

“Keegan got hot and we knew he could shoot it,” Moeller said. “Our idea was hey, let’s try to take away Maddox Miller and limit Keegan as best we could, but we did not limit Keegan.”

Christian’s size definitely took a toll, and not only on defense. The Knights collected 16 offensive rebounds which led to numerous second and third chance opportunities.

Roncalli (10-6) will attempt to fix that issue before it hosts Clark-Willow Lake on Monday.

“Clark’s another long, tall team, so I’m sure we’re going to do a bunch of box-out drills (Friday), and have some running for all the o-boards, so we know we have to come out and box them out,” Stewart said. “If we take care of that, we should be able to take care of business.”

Gallagher was proud of the way his team battled back against Christian, but was also disappointed in the setback.

“This one hurts and I don’t think it’s going to be easy to move on from it, but we have to,” Gallagher said. “We understand that Clark’s the next matchup. We’ll learn from this one, but we have to move forward and get better for that one.”

Becker Bosma and Joey Johnson each scored 16 points to lead the Knights. Christian, which has played a ton of games lately, has more contests coming up on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday.

Furman said the team should be ready to handle the constant action.

“We had a player-led morning conditioning before the season started,” Furman said, “so we kicked if off strong there, and then we’ve done a lot of running in practice. We train for this.”

Christian (10-4) hosts Sully Buttes and standout player Wesley Wittler on Saturday afternoon at the ACS Gym.

“There’s no time to breathe here,” Moeller said. “We’ve got Sully Buttes on Saturday and another great player that we’ve got to try to stop.”

The Knights will certainly have momentum on their side as they look to extend their winning streak.

“I kept telling everybody we’re going to be better in February than December,” Moeller said. “These guys had to grow up. We had zero varsity starting experience. They’re starting to grow up a little bit right in front of our eyes and that’s really encouraging.”

ABERDEEN RONCALLI (10-7): Maddox Miller 1 0-0 3, Brody Weinmeister 1 0-0 2, Keegan Stewart 8 3-6 24, Parker Grieben 3 3-4 9, Caden Shelton 1 0-0 2. Totals 14-37 6-10 40.

ABERDEEN CHRISTIAN (10-4): Elliott Russell 1 0-2 2, Becker Bosma 5 3-8 16, Konnar Furman 2 1-2 5, Brooks Jett 1 4-6 6, Joey Johnson 6 4-5 16, Luke Kaiser 1 0-0 2. Totals 16-35 12-23 47.

Aberdeen Roncalli 12 17 30 40

Aberdeen Christian 17 29 39 47

3-point field goals – Miller, Stewart (5); Bosma (3). Fouled out – Miller. Total fouls – Aberdeen Roncalli 18; Aberdeen Christian 11. Rebounds – Aberdeen Roncalli 20 (Stewart 7); Aberdeen Christian 25 (Johnson 7, Jett 6,). Turnovers – Aberdeen Roncalli 13; Aberdeen Christian 13.