ALEXANDRIA — With two minutes left on the clock and the game tied at 70, the Alexandria boys basketball team needed someone to step up and make the big plays down the stretch against the visiting Brainerd Warriors on Tuesday, Jan. 30. And in his return from a three-week injury absence, Chase Thompson did just that.

As the clock wound down, he swallowed up an opponent’s shot attempt on the defensive end and subsequently buried a pull-up 3-pointer to give the Cardinals a 73-70 lead with a minute and a half to play. After another defensive stand by 8th-ranked Alexandria (Class 3A), Thompson found Bralyn Steffensmeier wide open under the basket for an easy bucket to extend the lead to five points. A pair of free throws from Dawson Roderick iced the game, and the Cardinals celebrated a 77-70 home victory for their 12th win of the season.

“We’re really glad to have Chase back,” Alexandria head coach Forrest Witt said. “Good players make really good plays, and you have to have those types of guys in late-game situations who can come through when both teams already know what the other wants to do.”

“I’ve put in a lot of practice and used to go to Forrest Witt’s summer camps to work on my shooting form,” Thompson said about his late 3-pointer. “But it all really just comes down to that final moment… I’ve spent the past three weeks working out with the team’s physical trainers constantly, and I just couldn’t wait to get back out there.”

The injury to Thompson is one of a couple of injuries or illnesses the Cardinals have been dealing with in recent weeks. Senior Grayson Grove has been sidelined for a month with an injury and is working his way back.

Thompson finished Tuesday’s contest as he began it. The visiting Warriors got off to a hot start as they buried three 3-pointers in the opening few minutes, but Thompson matched them with nine points of his own to keep the pace. As the half wore on, the Warriors opened up a 6-point lead (31-25), but Thompson’s scoring continued, and he was joined by Mason Witt, whose back-to-back 3-pointers closed the gap to 35-33 by the end of the half.

“I remember setting a screen for Mason, and I didn’t even look at the ball – I knew it was going in,” Thompson said about Mason Witt’s offensive performance.

Thompson (16 points) and Mason Witt (15 points) accounted for all but two of Alexandria’s first half points.

“[Those two] just shot the ball really well,” Coach Witt said. “We wanted to get a few more guys involved in the offense, but we were a little stagnant and didn’t move off the ball as well as we should’ve in the first half. We ended up getting late into the shot clock on several possessions because we weren’t aggressive with the ball, but luckily, our guys hit a few perimeter shots to keep us in it.”

Brainerd’s hot shooting continued early in the second half, and the Cardinals trailed all the way up until the two-minute mark. But consistent scoring from Thompson and 11 second-half points from Steffensmeier and seven from Talan Witt kept Alexandria within striking distance until Thompson’s late-game heroics gave the team the lead.

Thompson finished the night with a game-high 31 points. Mason Witt finished with 20, and Steffensmeier’s 11 gave the team three double-digit scorers on the night.

“Brainerd switched a lot in the first half, so I would set a screen, get a mismatch, and go to work down low,” Thompson said about his scoring performance. “They stopped switching in the second half, so our picks were able to get shooters open, and their big guys couldn’t keep up with me in the post.”

Tuesday’s conference win over Brainerd (9-8) moves Alexandria to 8-1 (12-5 overall) in the Central Lakes Conference, where it sits tied with Sauk Rapids-Rice (8-1 in conference, 13-4 overall).

The Cardinals visit SR-R at 7:15 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 2. The teams met in Alexandria in mid-December, and the Cardinals won 76-67.

Following Friday’s game in Sauk Rapids, Alexandria hosts Fargo Davies in the Breakdown’s Winter Lakes Classic on Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024, at 8 p.m.