WALTER TO PLAY AS FLYERS AIM FOR CONSOLATION TITLE
The Freeman High School boys are playing for a championship — a consolation championship, that is.
And one day after sitting out because of illness, freshman David Walter — the team’s leading scorer — will play.
The Flyers will face Wall in the fifth/sixth-place game at 1:45 p.m. Saturday after defeating Aberdeen Christian Friday afternoon, March 21 in the second round of the Class B state tournament. Freeman beat the Knights 52-44 to advance to one of the biggest games of the three-day tournament; because the winner of the fifth/sixth-place game finishes the tournament with a 2-1 record, the result is a “champion” tag and a larger trophy as opposed to plaques awarded teams that place fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth.
Freeman’s win over Aberdeen Christian came without Walter, who fought through illness in Thursday night’s loss to Viborg-Hurley and was struggling with respiratory issues during Friday morning’s team walk-through. That’s when Walter, his coaches and parents, concluded he would sit it out against Aberdeen Christian.
The decision “was mine and theirs,” he said Friday afternoon. “I don’t want to risk nothing.”
Walter was on the bench in street clothes during Friday’s game, and afterward went in for testing for Covid, mono, influenza and strep and came back negative in all cases, said his mother, Janett.
She said they were treating is as flu-like symptoms, and Walter was questionable for Saturday’s game against Wall Friday night, but at the very least he will be there in support of his team.
Janett said Saturday morning that David was feeling better, and he participated in the 10 a.m. practice at Aberdeen Central.
When asked if the was ready to go, Walter replied, “Oh yeah.”
After the team arrived at the Barnett Center early Saturday afternoon, the coaches confirmed he would dress and come into the game off the bench.
Scoring the win
Without Walter — the team’s leading scorer with a per-game average of 19 points — the Flyers knew they would have to come together as a team to take down Aberdeen Christian.
“When I heard about it at first, I was obviously like, ‘This is going to be different not having our best player,’ but I knew if we played together, we could get it done,” said junior forward Tate Sorensen. “I still had full confidence. We were still the Freeman Flyers, we’re not the David Flyers, so without David, it’s OK. We just had to go out there together and get it.”
That’s what they did.
Freeman led for much of what was a close game against the Knights, leading 27-23 at the half and 36-34 after three quarters before pulling away in the fourth.
Sorensen led the way with 17 points, freshman Tayden Kerrigan went for 14 and junior Luke Peters added 12.
Freeman, the sixth seed, takes a 20-5 record into its final game of the year.
Wall, the fifth seed, is 18-7.
