The Lakota Nation Innovational wrapped up this weekend with the final boys and girls basketball games. Two teams took home the title of 2015 champions.
Loud fans filled the bleachers of Rapid City’s Rushmore Plaza Civic Center for the final games of the Lakota National Invitational, or LNI. They cheered as the girls basketball team, Mustangs from Little Wound School in Kyle South Dakota Faced off against the Todd County Falcons girls team on Saturday night.
The Mustangs took the win with a score of 62-50. Lyle Lebeaux Jr. is coach of the girl’s champion team.
“They did it. Last year was a struggle for us and I don’t think we even broke 500 last year. It’s a big, big challenge for us, building confedence last year. And it carried over this year and these girls want to win. They showed it this weekend,” says Lebeaux.
The boys team, White River Tigers played against a Nebraska team, the Winnebago Indians next. Winnebago stole the game with a final score of 74-40. Coach Jeffrey Berridge says this is the first time Winnebago has been invited to LNI.
“It’s big, it’s big. Every win’s big for us. It’s just another step in our way to state. But coming up here, getting invited here and winning in our first year is really big for us. Everybody’s seen up here that we can play. We won our state title last year so we’re looking to defend and we got the weapons to do it,” Berridge says.
He says the team has been invited back to LNI next year and they plan to try and repeat the success of this year.