RAPID CITY - Rapid City Central took control on the boards in the second half to hand Rapid City Stevens its 14th loss in 15 starts, a 67-60 Greater Dakota Conference boys basketball win Friday night.

The Cobbler boys completed a sweep of their cross-town rivals before an estimated 3,400 spectators at Stevens' Heier Gymnasium. The Central girls claimed a 62-57 win over Stevens Thursday night.

Evan Sims' two 3-pointers, both off of offensive rebounds keyed a stretch run for the Cobblers. The 6-6 senior forward finished with 17 points and five rebounds.

"It's always fun to beat your cross-town rivals. This is the first time since I've been starting at central that we've beat Stevens. That's always exciting," Sims said.

Caleb Grenz led the Cobblers with 18 points. Walter Jones led with 10 rebounds and added 15 points, including seven of 10 from the free-throw line.

The Raiders trailed by two, 62-60, with 31 second left, but Central forced a five-second call before Raider guard Brock Estes could find an outlet pass.

The Raiders were forced to foul the rest of the way. Central responded with five of six from the stripe to ice the win.

A foul-plagued first half saw both teams whistled for 15 fouls apiece. Central coach Mike Purcell told his charges at halftime to sharpen their defense and force Stevens to make their points from the field instead of the line.

Stevens was 16 of 23 from the line, while A total of 28 of Central's points came via free tosses.

"Defensively we had a much better second half in that we didn't put them at the free throw line. They had to work more to get shots from the floor instead of from the free throw line. We weren't going to let them beat us from the line," said Purcell.

Raider coach T.J. Hay said he liked his team's hustle on both ends of the court, but, to his view, Central's 27-19 rebounding advantage was the turning point.

"That was the difference. Six of their first 10 points were off of offensive rebounds. We take better care of boxing out and rebounding, and we win that game," Hay said.

"I thought we were a lot better offensively and defensively. That's what we worked on this week. Now we need to work on rebounding," Hay said.

Ivan Dzintars and Estes both scored 19 to lead Stevens. Estes had four threes to lead all scorers. Sam Wolff added 11 points and shared top rebounding honors with Dzintars with five boards each.

Both teams have a week to prepare for a pair of tough conference games on their home courts.

Rapid City Central (5-10, 4-3 GDC) hosts Sioux Falls O'Gorman on

Feb. 8, and Sioux Falls Roosevelt on Feb. 9.

Stevens (1-14, 1-6) hosts Roosevelt on Feb. 8 and O'Gorman on Feb. 9.