Photo by Noah Clooten
BISMARCK — Kindred’s Jakob Starcevic missed his second free throw.
Devils Lake, up by one, had 6.1 seconds to hold on.
Presley Peraza grabbed the offensive rebound, then threw it back to Karson Ouse. The 6-foot-9 senior shot a three-ball attempt and missed. The ball came tumbling towards a huddle of Firebirds and Vikings, and it tipped off the hands of Kindred’s Brooks Bakko — into the basket as time expired.
“There’s things you can’t change in life,” Devils Lake head coach Dustin Brodina said. “You can’t change the way the ball bounces. The ball’s gotta bounce a certain way sometimes. And it just didn’t go our way towards the end there.”
It took even the Kindred student section a second to process what had happened. But a sea of blue quickly swarmed the Bismarck Event Center floor, the Vikings celebrating a revenge championship before either team hardly had a chance to soak it in.
Devils Lake was denied a repeat championship. Despite leading by as many as 26 in the first half, the Firebirds (24-2) were sniped by a Kindred team (25-1) that was ranked No. 1 for the majority of the year and seeded No. 1 in the state tournament. The Vikings, who previously handed the No. 2-seeded Firebirds their only regular-season loss, persevered in a 59-58 game for the ages to win the 2025 boys’ basketball state championship on Saturday.
“Not to point fingers. That was the first message,” Brodina said about his return to the locker room after the game. “You can’t blame anybody. You can’t blame anybody for anything that happened throughout the game. Just be proud of each other for what they’ve accomplished this year.”
Devils Lake was led by 18 points from Oliver Wirth. Parker Brodina scored 12, while Joel Nelson had 11. The Vikings got 17 points from Starcevic, 13 by Peraza and 10 from Izaak Spelhaug.
It was Kindred’s second state championship ever — both coming in the 2020s. It was the first championship in Class A for the Vikings, with this being the second year of the three-class system. They previously won the 2021 Class B state championship and were runners-up in 2022, when they fell to Four Winds/Minnewaukan in the title game. Last year, it was the Vikings being denied by a victorious Firebirds team.
Devils Lake, for now, will have to settle for its two state championships. One in 1925, and the other in 2024.
“There’s wins and losses in life,” Brodina said. “It’s not the highlight of your life. It better not be, anyway. There’s bigger things in life than just the ball going in the hole. And that was the message. And that they’re gonna be grown men someday, and that they’ll learn from it.”
It was a game highlighted by a big run from each team — Devils Lake in the first quarter and Kindred in the fourth.
Early on, it was all Firebirds. They cruised to a 19-0 run after initially going down 3-0.
Bakko and Wirth traded and-ones to start the game. After a drive by Nelson, the Firebirds, up 5-3, had already made more two-pointers than they did in the entire first half of their 52-47 loss to Kindred on Feb. 22.
One basket led to another, and Devils Lake built an enormous lead in the blink of an eye. Wirth and Brodina each converted awkward reverse layups, and Palmer locked down an and-one.
On Kindred’s side, Ouse missed a pair of open looks, and Lukas Starcevic had a layup take an unlucky spin in and out of the basket.
After Wirth landed a three from center-court, Kindred took a timeout with the score having ballooned up to 19-3. Ten of those points were from Wirth. The 6-foot-6 forward, who will be playing college football in the fall, had been quiet for most of the tournament thus far.
Kindred’s next points didn’t come until an Ouse triple with 1:32 left in the first quarter. Nelson shot right back with a three from the corner, and Brodina got down the floor to make it 24-6.
The Firebirds actually didn’t make any two-pointers in the second quarter, but they had six threes. Each Palmer — Mason and Max — had two of them, while Wirth and Nelson each made one. At the time, the barrage of threes completely spoiled the Vikings’ desperate attempts at capturing momentum.
Ouse and L. Starcevic each scored five in the second quarter for Kindred, and Peraza ended the half with a dunk. But Devils Lake still went into the locker room at halftime with a seemingly comfortable 42-22 advantage.
Two quarters away from its second consecutive championship.
Kindred came out looking marginally better in the third quarter. Ouse and Peraza hit threes, while J. Starcevic and Bakko each found the rim. L. Starcevic made 2-of-4 free throws after Brodina’s third foul and Nelson’s second. Devils Lake’s lead was trimmed to 48-34 with 2:11 left in the third quarter.
Kindred scored the last five points of the period. Devils Lake led 52-41 going into the final eight minutes of game time.
And that’s when things slid further off the rails. The Vikings opened the fourth quarter on a 15-3 run, with zero field goals from Devils Lake.
The Firebirds couldn’t settle down. Wirth opened the quarter with a sloppy pass out of bounds. Kindred got a stop on Nelson with Devils Lake’s lead at eight, and the Palmers missed the type of three-pointers they’d been landing all tournament. Mason Palmer ran in and missed a layup — then Bakko hit a triple to make it a one-point game, 53-52, with 2:58 left. The Kindred bench went nuts.
The Vikings got right back down the floor, and Ouse put them ahead 54-53. That made 11 straight points for Kindred. With slightly over two minutes left on the clock, Nelson missed a potential go-ahead shot.
“They just played better defense, and they didn’t allow us to have any open shots,” Brodina said. “And then we didn’t hit any shots. We didn’t execute any shots at all. We maybe were a little complacent, but we wanted to slow it down, make sure we took it one possession at a time. And they hit shots, and we didn’t.”
Brodina had a shot bounce out of the basket — but he was fouled by Ouse in the process at the 1:59 mark.
Brodina made both free throws. He came up huge from the line in Friday’s semifinal win, and his two shots kept Devils Lake in it right there, up 55-54.
Bakko gave Kindred the lead back. He was fouled in the process, but missed the free throw. The Vikings led 56-55 with 1:02 on the clock.
Wirth — the hero of the first half — knocked down a three to finally spark some life back into Devils Lake with less than 30 seconds left in the game. It was the Firebirds’ first field goal of the fourth quarter. They were up the skin of their teeth, 58-56.
Brodina fouled out with the clock down to 6.1 seconds. J. Starcevic went to the line, and he made the first free throw before Kindred took a timeout. Brodina sat. And back the teams went to the floor, each hoping for last-second heroics. Devils Lake leading 58-57.
It’s not often that a team gets three shots off with only six seconds on the clock. After Starcevic missed the free throw, Peraza’s offensive rebound proved to make all the difference. A Devils Lake rebound could have effectively ended the game.
Ouse missed his dramatic buzzer-beating three attempt, but Bakko somehow found a way to get a hand in there and tip it in. Looks of shock, confusion and joy befell the Kindred students. Devils Lake players keeled over in disbelief.
“That’s the way the ball bounces,” Brodina said.
And so the party started for Kindred. The Firebirds and Vikings are even now, with each winning a state championship game over the other in the last two years.
Despite the fresh sting of defeat, Devils Lake was deservedly well-represented in the postgame awards ceremony. Brodina, Nelson and Mason Palmer were named to the all-tournament team. Brodina was also named the Class A Senior Athlete of the Year.
“He’s the one kid that makes sure everybody’s accountable,” Parker’s dad and head coach said. “He’s in the weight room at six o’clock in the morning, making sure everybody’s there at practice. He’s there all the time. That’s what I’m gonna miss a lot. And it’s hard to replace guys like that: leaders that lead every day. Not just one day, but consistent leadership. Yeah, and I’m gonna miss coaching him every day.”
The high school basketball careers of Brodina and seven other Devils Lake seniors came to an end Saturday night.
“I’m gonna be proud of the dedication they had in the program, and the staples of the program that we started — that I started here four years ago,” Brodina said. “They’ve been with me all through the four years. And that hard work and dedication that the younger underclassmen, I hope they see; they see the hard work and the success that could happen if you dedicate your time to that hard work.”
Thus brings an end to the 2024-25 high school basketball season. The Firebirds will have to wait until next December to fill the Devils Lake Sports Center once again.
