The fifth-ranked Jackson County Central boys basketball team took their first postseason step with a victory in their Section 3AA Tournament opener on Thursday night. 

RECAP

The Huskies held court as the top South seed with a 66-50 win over #4 seed Fairmont inside “The Nest” in Windom. 

JCC built a 30-19 halftime lead but the Cardinals tied the game twice early in the second half. Huskies head coach Alex Hein says they took over again after that. 

COACH INTERVIEW

JCC led by as many as 15 down the stretch. 

Weston Rowe scored 16 points for the Huskies. He nearly had a double-double with nine rebounds on the night. 

Ben Gallagher co-led JCC with 16 points of his own. He also grabbed a team-high five steals. 

Grant Freking added 10 points with all of them coming in the second half. He co-led JCC with five offensive rebounds. 

Roman Voss collected 10 points as well including the punctuation mark on the night. He also led the Huskies with seven assists. 

Aiven Farmer scored eight points, Thomas Liepold added four points, and Carson Pohlman had two points. 

The 23-4 Huskies are in the South subsection championship game for the second year in a row. 

The #2 South seed Luverne beat #3 seed Redwood Valley 90-79 in the other subsection semifinal game on Thursday. The Huskies and those Cardinals play on Saturday at SMSU in Marshall with the tip-off at 8:00 p.m. 

Luverne has a 19-7 overall record but lost to JCC twice during the regular season. 

The top North seed Montevideo and #2 Morris Area/Chokio-Alberta will play each other in the 6:00 p.m. game on Saturday. 

Our coverage begins after that game on KKOJ.