MANKATO, Minn. -- A 14-0 run in four-and-a-half minutes spanning halftime helped Bethany Lutheran pull away from the UW-Superior men's basketball team for a 93-75 victory in the 2023 Upper Midwest Athletic Conference championship game at North Gymnasium on Sunday.
 
The Yellowjackets crept to within 62-56 with 10:45 to play and later 72-65 with 6:05 left before the Vikings sealed the victory with a late 18-3 stretch, capping a perfect 11-0 home record. Top-seeded BLC (23-4) earns the UMAC's automatic qualification to the NCAA tournament and will learn its destination Monday.
 
Junior J'Vaun Walker (Rosharon, Texas/Manvel) scored a game-high 24 points on 10-for-19 shooting, adding five assists, with 20 of those points coming in a frenetic, up-tempo first half. UWS scored the first five points of the game on a Josef Fahrenholtz (Chatfield, Minn./Chatfield) layup and Walker 3-pointer prior to Bethany rallying to cut the deficit to 9-7 with a Drew Sagedahl trey with just 3:05 off the clock.
 
Another Sagedahl triple, coupled with a Xavier Patterson (Superior, Wis./Superior Senior) basket inside sandwiching a Reid Johnson (Chatfield, Minn./Chatfield) 3-pointer pulled the Vikings within 15-13. Sagedahl then stripped T.J. Moberg (Champlin, Minn./Champlin Park) of the ball and raced the other way for a game-tying layup with just over five minutes gone.
 
With the game tied at 21-21, Sagedahl and Aleck Sharma hit consecutive threes for a six-point Bethany edge midway through the half, a cushion BLC carried into the break. 
 
The Yellowjackets went cold late in the period, misfiring on four of their final seven attempts from the field as Bethany Lutheran scored seven straight points for a 45-36 halftime advantage.
 
Patterson converted a layup in the first minute of the second half to give Bethany its first double-figure lead of the day at 47-36, before Jax Madson followed with a trey and Hunter Nielsen a dunk, expanding the lead to 52-36 with 17:52 remaining.
 
Sophomore Andrew Kunelius (Caledonia, Minn./Caledonia) canned a 3-pointer, assisted by Moberg, at the 12:56 mark to work the margin to single digits at 60-51. After a Bethany bucket, Walker knocked down another three to make it 62-54. Levy Miguel (Luanda, Angola/Canarias Basketball Academy) -- who chipped in with 15 points, seven rebounds and three steals in 24 minutes off the bench -- hit a layup with 10:45 left, cutting the lead to 62-56 following a BLC timeout.
 
That was as close as 'Jackets got, though, as a Madson jumper with 10 minutes remaining touched off a 7-2 spurt in less than a minute. Moberg's jumper in the paint at the 7:45 mark sliced the lead to 69-60, but Sharma drained two 3-pointers and Madson a third in quick succession to hand Bethany a 78-65 edge with five-and-a-half minutes to play, a lead from which Superior could not recover.
 
Bethany Lutheran shot 55.9 percent for the game, including an 18-of-30 showing in the first half for 60 percent. UWS was 15-for-30 in the second half, finishing the game at 49.2 percent. BLC held a 39-26 rebounding advantage and a 52-40 edge in points in the paint.
 
Bethany had six players score double digits, paced by Sagedahl with 18 points. Madson, Riley Ashburn and Sharma scored 14 points apiece with Mason Ackley (Superior, Wis./Superior Senior) totaling game bests of 14 boards and six assists.
 
The Yellowjackets' season ends with a 17-10 overall record, accounting for the most wins in a season since the 1977-78 team went a school-record 21-7.