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MADISON – For NEW Lutheran’s final possession against Drummond in Thursday’s Division 5 semifinals, it was expected the ball would be in the hands of Blazers guard Travis Voigt.

And good hands they were.

Voigt ran nearly 30 seconds off the clock, executed an ankle-breaking crossover and dished to an open Nathan Toenjes for a hoop-and-one with three seconds left to make the difference in NEW Lutheran’s 62-59 win over Drummond.

“I could see Travis driving down the lane just like a lot of times this year,” Toenjes said after finishing with 11 points, as all five Blazers starters reached double figures. “It just worked perfectly.”

Voigt, the two-time Packerland Conference player of the year for the Blazers (28-0), saw there were 29 seconds left with a tie score. It was exactly the time he wanted the ball.

“I wanted to run the clock down a little, then take the guy one-on-one,” said Voigt, who also eluded Drummond’s effort to foul him on the drive. “It was my choice to drive or dish off.”

The Best of Times

Drummond senior Ben Best had a slow start Thursday but finished with the game’s only double-double with 19 points and 15 rebounds. That included seven of the Lumberjacks’ final 10 points of the first half, which gave Drummond a 30-29 lead.

“(The Blazers) were aggressive on defense in the first quarter,” said Best, who is mulling opportunities to play next year at a variety of Division II and Division III colleges. “It was tough to get the ball. In the second quarter, we sent our big guy up and used a couple of back door cuts. I felt that I had to start getting some shots up.”

Winging It

Drummond (24-3) hit five 3-pointers in the first half, but the open looks didn’t appear because NEW Lutheran was forcing double teams on Best.

“We just had guys missing defensive assignments,” said Blazers coach Mark Meerstein.

Randolph Goes for a 10-Spot

Randolph will play for its 10th state championship Saturday after rallying past Elmwood 46-37 on Thursday. The Rockets (26-2) fell behind 14-4 in the first quarter but held the Raiders (23-5) to 24 percent shooting in the second half.

“In the first quarter it was like, just get the jitters out,” said Rockets senior Aaron Retzlaff, who finished with a team-high 16 points and 12 rebounds. “At the (first quarter) media timeout it was like 11-2 or 10-2 or something. Then we just said, ‘Let’s just go play.’”

To Randolph coach Bob Haffele, Saturday’s opportunity to play for a 10th state title – more than any school in state history – means there have been a lot of good players and coaches in the tiny school’s program.

“I jokingly said after we got one (state title) that after we got 10, I’m done, so we’ll see,” Haffele said.

He quickly dispersed any speculation by adding, “I was joking.”

“Kenya Do it Like Duke?”

That was one of the signs in the Randolph fan section in honor of sophomore guard Duke Vander Galien, who was adopted from Kenya by a Wisconsin family a decade ago.

Vander Galien kept the Rockets in the game early, scoring six straight points in the first quarter to reduce Elmwood’s lead from 11-2 to 14-8 at the end of the period. He finished with 13 points.

“Duke got us going,” Haffele said. “He shook loose a few times. We were talking in the locker room and he said, ‘It’s difficult to shoot out there.’ He thought he was a little closer to the basket than he was when he got up in the air. But for a sophomore he plays with a lot of confidence.”

Foul turn of events

Senior Logan Wolf, Elmwood’s leading scorer, was limited by three first-half fouls. Although he did play 30 of the game’ 32 minutes, he finished with only eight points – nearly nine fewer than his season average.

“It definitely took away some of my aggressiveness,” Wolf said. “When you have that many fouls, you’ve got to play smarter, and smarter sometimes mans you have to be less aggressive. No matter what the offense and defense is, you don’t want to pick up that fourth foul early. It definitely took away from my game.”

Note:  Attendance for the Division 5 semi-final session was 8,340.