PERHAM – Thief River Falls junior Jack Manning was a problem in the post for the Perham boys basketball team on Tuesday night.
Trailing 43-42, Manning hit a turn-around jumper with 43 seconds left to give the Prowlers (16-6) a one-point lead. Hit then buried two free throws 20 seconds later, which was enough to hand Perham (13-10) a 46-43 loss.
Perham started the game trailing 16-9 with just over seven minutes left in the first half. Junior Alex Ohm hit a three to spark a 12-4 run. Manning added a pair of hard-earned layups in the final minutes before halftime.
It looked like Perham was content with taking its four-point deficit into the locker room after the first 18 minutes. That was until Jacob Daniels nailed a three-pointer as time expired. Daniels had six points at the break in hitting two of Perham’s three first-half three-pointers.
The Prowlers started the second half on a 10-4 run before senior Chas Melvin hit a three to pull Perham within four points. TRF extended its lead to 39-31 before junior Soren Anderson scored two of his ten points with a cutting layup. It started a 6-0 Yellowjackets’ run before TRF’s Jack Rosendahl hit his second three of the game.
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Daniels converted a pair of free throws before Anderson drove to the rim with 1:21 to give Perham its first lead of the half. That’s when Manning took over the final minute of the game.
Manning finished with a game-high 15 points. Perham junior Micah Thompson had a team-high 13 points. The Yellowjackets struggled to see shots fall from any range on Tuesday night. Perham shot 33.3% from the field, including 21.1% from three on 4-of-19 shooting. Anderson and Thompson, Perham’s two leading scorers, were a combined 7-for-27.
The top of the Section 8-2A standings is heating up with just four games before the end of the regular season. Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton (19-4) will earn the No. 1 seed barring a seismic collapse. Perham is currently holding the second seed in the 16-team section with a QRF rating of 105.7. Pelican Rapids (18-5, 103.1) and Thief River Falls (100.6) each have QRF ratings above 100.
On Mar. 5, the Section 8-2A tournament will be seeded by the QRF system, according to Minnesota-Scores. Despite Perham’s near .500 record, it could still get the No. 2 seed if it avoids the tiebreaker margin. The tiebreaker margin takes the average QRF rating between each team in the class and multiplies it by 7%. If two teams have QRF scores within that margin, the higher seed will be determined by head-to-head matchups.
As it stands, Perham would be in the tiebreaker margin with both Pelican Rapids and TRF. If that holds for the remainder of the season, the Yellowjackets will drop to the fourth seed in the section tournament.
