Leola-Frederick saved its best for last to pull out a hard-fought win Thursday night at Roncalli Gym.

The Titans scored 21 fourth-quarter points, including the final six of the game, to finally subdue Aberdeen Roncalli 60-49 in non-conference boys’ basketball action.

Leola-Frederick coach Brock Pashen said the key is to get better as the season progresses.

“Everybody can talk about wins and losses, but you’re still going to have the same kids in the locker room, so it’s a matter of getting better,” Pashen said. “Because whether we won or lost tonight, we’d still have practice (Friday) with the same group of guys, so it’s just getting better every day.”

After building an 11-point third-quarter lead, the Titans needed to finish down the stretch after Roncalli had pulled to within 54-49 with 45 seconds left on a 3-pointer from Creighton Fisher. Leola-Frederick responded with four straight free throws – two each from Jace Thorpe and Milo Sumption – and steal and layup by Westyn Thorpe to close out the win.

The visitors, who scored six points in less than a minute twice in the fourth quarter, were able to produce enough offense to fend off the Cavaliers.

“I can just thank my teammates for that, because Westyn is always getting people the ball,” said Winston Clark, who scored six of his team-leading 15 points in the final period. “We just worked together really good as a team tonight and found the open shots.”

Finding the open shots was not the problem for the Titans, but finishing them was a bit of an issue. Leola-Frederick missed numerous inside shots off picture-perfect back door cuts.

“The shots were definitely there,” Clark said. “We’ve just got to do a better job of executing, but I’m just glad the shots were there. Our offense was working good.”

Part of the reason those cuts were there was because of Roncalli’s defense on the perimeter.

“We gotta clean those up,” said Roncalli coach Dan Gallagher. “A lot of it came because we were pressuring the perimeter a lot, but we got beat on the back doors, we got beat on a lot rim cuts on post touches, different things like that.”

However, Fisher, making his first career start, kept the Cavaliers withing striking distance. The freshman scored 11 of his team-leading 14 points down the stretch.

“I was kind of playing scared at the first couple games and even like the first quarter I was playing scared and worried,” Fisher said, “but then I turned it on fourth quarter and just played with confidence and started playing my game.”

Gallagher talked about the performance of Fisher with the game on the line.

“Obviously, Creighton’s earned his way into the starting lineup and he showed that tonight. … He showed up when it mattered,” Gallagher said.

Fisher said it helps to have the backing of his coaches and teammates in order to have the confidence to shoot the ball in a close game.

“I got my coaches and my teammates, mostly the seniors, just harping on me to keep shooting, keep shooting,” Fisher said. “I just like that they have belief in me and they’re just confident with me shooting the ball.”

Both teams received balanced contributions on the night. Jace Thorpe added 11 points, Sumption eight, and Brayden Heuer seven for the Titans, 5-2 on the season.

Bryson Olson added nine points, and Jesse Hernandez and Paul Barr had eight apiece for the Cavaliers.

In the end, Leola-Frederick ended up with a dominating advantage in rebounding, led by Sumption with 14 rebounds.

“Finding second-chance opportunities,” Pashen said, “you’ve got to find points somewhere and we found that this is a good place to find them.”

The Titans finished with 19 offensive rebounds in the contest.

“There’s a lot of athleticism on that team,” Gallagher said, “so we’ve got to make sure that no matter what, we’ve always got to make sure that we’re boxing out, physically. … I know with talking to Pashen before, he wants to be that small-town farm team, and small-town farm teams area going to crash the boards and do the physical things.”

Roncalli plays at Sisseton next Thursday. Gallagher is looking forward to the break, noting it will be the first extended practice time since losing Austin Fisher to an injury during the Christmas break.

“This is going to be a huge 4-5 days where we can just really dive in on how are we going to have an offensive identity without him,” Gallagher said, “so it’s going to be big.”

LEOLA-FREDERICK (5-2): Westyn Thorpe 3 0-2 6, Jace Thorpe 4 3-4 11, Winston Clark 6 3-4 15, Milo Sumption 3 2-2 8, Zander Hoffman 1 3-5 5, Brayden Heuer 2 3-4 7, Quinn Huettl 1 0-0 2, Erik Losure 3 0-1 6. Totals 23-49 14-20 60.

ABERDEEN RONCALLI (2-4): Jesse Hernandez 3 1-2 8, Sam Larson 1 2-2 5, Creighton Fisher 5 0-0 14, Bryson Olson 4 1-1 9, Aiden Hernandez 0 1-2 1, Mason Berndt 2 0-0 4, Paul Barr 3 2-2 8. Totals 18-49 7-9 49.

Leola-Frederick 17 28 39 60

Aberdeen Roncalli 11 21 32 49

3-point field goals – J. Hernandez, Larson, Fisher 4. Total fouls – Leola-Frederick 16; Aberdeen Roncalli 22. Rebounds – Leola-Frederick 43 (Sumption 14); Aberdeen Roncalli 20 (Olson 6). Turnovers – Leola-Frederick 14; Aberdeen Roncalli 12.