Breck was either not aware of the adage about it being tough to beat a team three times in a season or did not care about it.

Either way, the Mustangs did it and are now in line for the school’s first state boys basketball championship.

Breck took advantage of a cold-shooting opponent to open an early double-digit lead, overcame a late first-half lull and turned it up in the second half of a 70-45 win over Minnehaha Academy in a Class 2A semifinal Friday at Williams Arena.

Seeded No. 1, the 30-1 Mustangs will get No. 2 Albany or No. 3 Lake City in Saturday’s 5 p.m. championship game back at Williams Arena.

“I think everyone is pretty calm,” said Daniel Freitag, a University of Wisconsin commit, who finished with 13 points, 15 rebounds and six assists.

He attributes serenity to Breck winning 22 games in a row to start the season. “We’re poised right now, and I don’t think any of us are really nervous. I think we’re all just kind of hungry.”

It was the third win this season for Breck over its Independent Metro Athletic Conference foe. The Mustangs beat Minnehaha Academy 90-75 Jan. 16 and 79-68 Feb. 22.

“The teams know each other very well. We felt like we were very prepared to play them. They don’t run a ton of sets or anything, so it’s just knowing the personnel, making sure we’re switching up and taking away their threats,” said coach Harry Sonie.

Hanif Muhammad scored 13 points, Mu Muhammad 12, and Miles Newton and JP Musoke each had 11 for the Mustangs, who led by as many as 30 points in the second half.

George Norsman had 15 points and nine rebounds to lead Minnehaha Academy (15-15) which recorded a season-low in points. The Redhawks shot just 30.4% from the field and failed to reach 60 points for just the fourth time this season.

“There’s two glaring stats tonight. One is the number of points we gave up in the second half (42), and then No. 2, our shooting percentage was horrid,” said coach Lance Johnson. “Against a team like Breck if you don’t hit on every facet of the game you’re probably going to end up losing, and we missed on a lot of facets.”

Breck missed its first five shots, yet a couple of 3-pointers each from Musoke and Mu Muhammad provided a 13-5 lead. Just over three minutes later it was 21-8 via a Freitag shot from deep.

But Breck scored just seven points in the final 7:57, allowing Minnehaha Academy to chip away and get within six on back-to-back baskets by Norsman.

Missing 18 of their first 23 shots, the Redhawks made three of their final four before intermission.

The momentum did not carry over.

Minnehaha Academy missed 10 of its first 13 second-half attempts and 14 of 19; Breck made eight of its first 11.

A 19-2 Mustangs surge included five points from Freitag, including a baseline move and dunk. Newton had five and Hanif Muhammad four as the Breck lead reached 52-28.

“We knew we had high energy coming into the locker room, we tried to come out with fire. They came out with fire right back,” said Redhawks senior Donte Thomas. “We punched back, but they punched back 10 times harder.”

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