I had a great conversation with Coach Ryker Kreutzfeldt about his Kernels, including discussions about last year’s state tournament run, some of their top returning players from last year and what he most looks forward to with the state tournament.
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Now, without further ado, let’s get into the interview.
First off, what are your thoughts on qualifying for state?
Yeah, it’s a big deal. We’ve been lucky to go a few times in a row now and it can be easy to take that for granted a little bit, how hard it is to make it and the meaning behind all of that. So it’s a big deal for our guys and our community and hopefully we can go there and make a little bit of noise.
Yeah and last year you guys obviously had a really good season. You made it to that state championship game…How did making that game help you prepare for this upcoming year?
I think it just set the tone a little bit. Just making the state tournament, even though I just said not taking it for granted, it’s also not good enough. We want to be a team that’s cutting the nets down at the end of the year and we felt that it was possible for us after going on that run last year.
And our guys come back with the experience of playing in a Friday night game and obviously a Saturday night game which is valuable in AA.
Now, what’s kind of the name of your game on the court?
We really preach playing together and sticking together and coming together when things get tough. A couple things we say is, “we are greater than me,” which a lot of teams do but I think our guys really embrace that.
And then we say “our way” a lot, which is, we want to do things differently than other people. We want to play in our style, which has been playing together and unselfishly.
This year, you guys started off the season at the Corn Palace and had a ton of success. What was that like for your guys knocking down wins just right and left?
It was a good confidence builder. We didn’t truthfully know where we were going to be at the beginning of the year, because we brought back three guys that played a lot, but then nobody else had any varsity experience. It was a good confidence builder early and a part of that was we had great crowds. The following we’ve gotten in Mitchell has been awesome and they give us a home court advantage.
Yeah and turning it around to the second half of the season, you had to spend most of it on the road, how did that develop you guys?
I think the hope is that we are a little battle tested. We played in, like you said, such tough environments. A lot of ranked opponents on the road. We played Brandon Valley at home, but I think the rest of them were on the road and we were able to get them all.
So our guys got used to playing against some adversity. Having to make tough plays in close games when you need it and hopefully that pays dividends in Sioux Falls this weekend.
Colton [Smith] and Markus [Talley] are both averaging over 17 points a game. What can you say about those two and their leadership on the court?
Yeah, just two kids that we’ve known they were going to be good for a long time. You know with those guys being two of our three most experienced guys, it’s made them take on a much bigger role in our offense. They are kind of the 1-2 punch for us offensively but the unique thing is that each one of them in their own way is very different.
Colton is a physical, there’s no stop, his battery’s always on. Like he’s always going and coming at you. And then Markus is just uber-skilled, really smoothed. Makes the game look really easy and you know it’s just a unique duo that we have.
One other guy I want to mention, the only other guy who has been averaging over 30 minutes a game, Gavin Soukup. What can you say about him?
Yeah, he’s been what’s kept us going. He’s who we would say is our leader vocally, on the floor, off the floor. He keeps guys going in the right direction. He’s just really established himself as one of the better players in AA on both ends of the floor…And he got better at all of it. He went to work and he knew he was going to have to carry a big weight on his shoulders. He embraced that and came to us as a new player this year.
Now going back to that SoDak 16 game against Yankton, that first time around Yankton played you really well. That was one of their best games of the year. What was kind of your preparation going into that game, with that even though it was a #1 v. #16, Yankton was going to give you their best game?
Yeah, no doubt, Yankton’s a scary team and I would be shocked if everybody at the top of the standings were thinking like ‘we really don’t want to play Yankton in a playoff game.’ Coach Haynes does a really good job and part of it was we gave them belief. But maybe that was good for us, it woke us up and that week in practice our guys were really focused.
But it was a tough game to prepare for. They were sneaky good, they played with a lot of good teams: us, Harrisburg, SFC & Roosevelt. They didn’t get blown out by any of those teams.
You talked about not taking any state tournaments for granted. When that final horn went off at the Corn Palace what were your feelings knowing you were going back to another state tournament?
For myself, I just felt really grateful. I’ve had good kids the last three years I’ve been the head coach who have really bought into what we are doing and all they care about is making the state tournament and making a run to the state tournament and representing their community.
Some people go their whole career and don’t get to play or get to coach at the state tournament. And for us to be on our fourth straight or for my third straight as a head coach, I just feel lucky to be in the situation that I’m in.
Coming into the AA tournament, obviously there is a lot of practice time. You play one game in 20 days. So what have you been doing at practice to prepare you guys for the upcoming run in Sioux Falls?
It’s a tough stretch to plan for. You want to get going up and down, you want to go hard. But obviously, we don’t want to have any injuries. You want to take time and do walk throughs, scout, things like that. But you don’t want to spend your whole time doing that. You want to get better at certain things.
So you try to find a mix. The first week after the SoDak, we really focused on ourselves a lot. And then this week, we’ll focus a lot on Sioux Falls Jefferson and what they do and how to take away things they like. But it is a challenge to keep kids interested and engaged when you are playing one game in a span of two weeks and then you play three in a row.
Now, what can you say is your guys’ strategy coming into that first matchup against Jefferson?
Jefferson’s playing their best of the year. We played them in January and they are a lot better team than they were back then. They’ve won six in a row. They are really athletic, they get into transition a lot so we’ll have to try and slow them down and keep them playing in the halfcourt.
And then offensively for us, it’ll be about having some consistency and making sure that we’re not throwing possessions away with turning it over and letting them get in transition off those turnovers.
It’ll be a challenge. It should be a really fun opening game of the state tournament.
It’s going to be three fun days, but what are you as a coach most looking forward to coming up at the Denny?
You know, I just like seeing our kids play in those environments. Like I said, there are many kids that don’t get the chance to do that. These kids work all year just for the opportunity to play in these three games.
So for them to get to enjoy those games and then obviously the community of Mitchell does a great job of supporting us. That’s something I remember every year, is the crowd that we get and the things that fans and our parents do to make the weekend special for these kids is really, really cool. So there’s small things like the pep rally and the send off and people will line up on main street to send us off to Sioux Falls, that ends up being the most memorable.
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