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Most basketball fans believed this year would bring a wide-open Division 1 state tournament field, with no dominant team cruising to the title.

Stevens Point slammed the door with authority on that thought Saturday night, following Joey Hauser’s 33-point, 21 rebound performance to an 85-56 victory over Arrowhead. It marked the Panthers’ third straight state title, only the fourth school to accomplish that in WIAA’s top division (Beloit 1932-34, Milwaukee Vincent 1996-98, Germantown 2012-14).

“We didn’t talk too much about going after a third in a row,” said Stevens Point coach Scott Anderson, who lost NCAA Division I players Trevor Anderson and Sam Hauser to graduation in 2016. “I know that’s called three-peat, but this was a completely different team, especially when we lost Joey for two months.”

New cast or not, the Panthers (24-4) wrote the same story in the championship game: Dominate early by scoring the game’s first 13 points, build a 28-point halftime lead and let the second half play out in relaxed fashion.

Leading the way was junior Joey Hauser, taking the leadership role this season despite missing 11 games because of a football injury. Hauser had 23 points, 15 rebounds and three assists in the first half Saturday, giving the impression that he could do pretty much what he wanted against the Warhawks defense.

“He’s a multi-dimensional player,” Arrowhead forward Alec Hamilton said. “He’s a big guy and when I tried to cut him off, he posted me up. We tried to dig him out but he’d skip (the ball) across to other players and they would hit shots. It was a tough game.”

Stevens Point shot 50 percent in the first half, including 7 of 13 on 3-pointers. Meanwhile, the Panthers defense held Arrowhead (22-6) to 28 percent shooting in the opening half, with the Warhawks missing all eight 3-point tries.

“We played a wonderful first half,” said Anderson, who now has five state titles in the family, as his father Tim won two WIAA championships coaching Auburndale. “We were really good on both ends. Joey was outstanding, but other guys like Beau (Rosenthal) were great and (Andrew) Erdman was 3-for-3 from three in the first half. And we defended, because I was worried a little bit during the day how we would stop them.”

Rosenthal and Drew Blair each finished with 13 points, while Erdman had 11 for the Panthers. Stevens Point finished the game shooting 54.5 percent, despite Arrowhead coach Craig Haase continually switching defenses.

“We tried to mix some things up, tried to dig it out harder, changed defenses by going to a 2-3 zone, a 1-3-1, but it just wasn’t going our way tonight,” Haase said. “Obviously that had a lot to do with (Hauser). He’s just that good.”

Arrowhead point guard Trevell Cunningham finished his prep career with a 22-point game, while Ben Seefeld scored nine.

Preliminary attendance for the Saturday Evening Championship Session was 13,424, down nearly 1,000 from last year.