HAMLIN – The reigning State A boys’ basketball champs are leaning into the challenge of defending their title.

The Hamlin Chargers are making their third straight appearance in the State A tournament, and there’s no taboo about the subject in the Charger locker room.

“We talk about it,” said Hamlin coach Todd Neuendorf. “We rely on the experience. They got third two years ago, they won it last year, they won a football title this year. When the popcorn starts popping, these kids come up a level. We talk about understanding the situation, and they do. For the most part, they’ve been in enough of these situations that they know what they need to do and they know what they want to get done.”

Hamlin enters this year’s tournament as the 2-seed sporting a 20-2 record on the year. But the Chargers also enter the tournament having played just two games in the last month. 

“We sat for 16 days before we had to play (in the region tournament),” Neuendorf said.. “That was a long time to sit. Usually we have some weather and some stuff gets rescheduled, but nothing happened.”

Hamlin’s final regular-season contest was on Feb. 20. From there, the Chargers had a first round bye in the region tournament, then defeated Sioux Valley to get to the SoDak 16, before downing Milbank in the qualifier to reach the tournament field.

Still, the Chargers are feeling confident coming into the weekend, chiefly because they’ve relied on one constant for the majority of the season – defense.

“We have played really well defensively,” Neuendorf said, “and it’s bailed us out of some jams where maybe we didn’t shoot as well as we would have liked or got into some foul trouble. Defensively, we’ve been really good.”

But focusing solely on its defensive prowess is fools gold, Neuendorf added.

“Anybody that says, ‘We don’t care about offense, we’re going to rely on our defense,’ well, they’re lying to you, because you’ve got to have offense too,” he said. “But when you get to a state tournament – it was proof last year – you’ve got to get stops, and then you do have to come down and score.”

The Chargers have little trouble finding capable scorers on the floor, though Neuendorf noted that sometimes a team just needs to steal a few points in the state tournament.

“You’ve got to get some easy baskets at the state tournament, whether that be layups or free throws or something like that,” he said. “Rebound put-backs. You can’t just have the 3-pointer. They work all year, but then as it gets later in that state tournament, those start going away. The legs are gone, it’s the third day of a tournament, so shots are short. You’ve got to find other ways to score.”

The Chargers will also take a little inspiration from their counterparts at last weekend’s State A girls’ tournament, where the Hamlin girls finished third. That inspiration, in short, is to make every touch of the ball count.

“We were just out at the A girls and little things like not blocking out on a free throw, to getting an offensive rebound and putting it in at the buzzer,” Neuendorf said. “You saw that at the A girls tournament. Little things turn out to be a big problem this time a year. We’ve got to do all those little things, boxing out to contesting shots to diving for loose balls. … It’s cliche, but right now everything that happens is magnified, because you’ve played against a team that is as good as you are or better, and you can’t give them extra possessions.”

Hamlin will face Hill City to open the tournament, and Neuendorf said his team will come prepared.

“They’re not a big team,” Neuendorf said of the Rangers. “They don’t have anyone over 6-foot. They’re really quick and shoot the ball pretty well, so we’re going to have to defend that way. But right now, the eggs are in the fridge cooling and you’ve got what you’ve got. You have to go out and be who you are. We’re not going to change anything. We did a lot of stuff throughout the year to prepare us for this and now we’re going to go and (play). They’re good, but at this point, everybody’s good.”