After the
boys basketball team from Border West qualified for this week’s Class 1A state
tournament by winning the Section 6 title, no effort was made to celebrate with
any players who were part of the last team from their communities to play at
state.
Border West is
a cooperative team that draws students from three schools near the South Dakota
border: Wheaton, Herman-Norcross and Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley. The only
appearances at state for any of those schools was Wheaton in 1919, 1920 and
1921.
So, no, it’s
a little tough to contact athletes from 102 years ago.
The Border
West Buccaneers have had an outstanding season. They came to state with a 26-2
record and 23-game winning streak, which ended in a 68-55 loss to Cherry in the
1A quarterfinals Wednesday at Williams Arena. Several other sports have had
teams playing as Wheaton/Herman-Norcross, and boys basketball became a three-school
coop this season when Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley joined in.
In
wrestling, the three schools have been in a coop for years, qualifying for the
state team tournament in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Last fall,
Wheaton/Herman-Norcross advanced to the Nine-Man football state semifinals
before suffering their first loss of the season to eventual state champion
Mountain Iron-Buhl.
“We had a really nice season last
year and we were hoping to continue with that this year, and then we had the coop
and we knew we got some extra guys,” said Border West basketball coach Jordon Roos.
“So we had high expectations, but we had never seen a team (get to state) from
our areas. Give these guys a lot of credit, they came into the season with high
expectations and they really lived up to them because it doesn't always happen
that way.”
Border West “went through the
wringer” to get to state, Roos said.
“Our section is really tough and we
played some really good teams. Henning was a state champion (in 2019), B-B-E (Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa)
took second last year, KMS (Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg) is a great team.”
The Buccaneers beat those teams and
Brandon-Evansville in the section tournament. Prior to Wednesday, they had not
lost since back-to-back defeats against Sauk Centre and Perham over the
holidays.
They appeared
to be in a good position for most of the game against Cherry, which is at state
for the second year in a row. Cherry junior Isaac Asuma, who has made a verbal commitment
to play at the University of Minnesota, was in foul trouble for much of
Wednesday’s game.
Isaac went
to the bench with six points and three fouls with 7:40 left in the first half. Clapping
along while the Cherry fans chanted “defense!,” he remained on the bench for
the remainder of the first half as Gophers head coach Ben Johnson and assistants Dave Thorson, Jason Kemp and
Marcus Jenkins watched from courtside seats.
With 12:26
left in the second half he drew his fourth foul and returned to the bench with nine
points, six rebounds and five assists as Cherry led 43-39. He returned with
5:10 left and assisted on a three-pointer by Carson Brown that gave the Tigers
a 55-50 lead.
Cherry went
into a delay offense at that point, finally taking a shot when Asuma put in a
layup with 3:35 left, making it 57-50. Noah Sundquist was fouled while scoring
with 3:07 on the clock. He made the foul shot for a 60-51 margin and every
basket for Cherry after that was a layup.
Sundquist rode
to the rescue, finishing with 30 points while playing all 36 minutes. Asuma played
21 minutes and had 11 points and 11 rebounds.
Asuma had
been in similar foul trouble only once during the season, in an 86-75 loss to
Minnehaha Academy on Dec. 17. In that game, Sundquist scored 29 points, Tigers
coach Jordan Christenson said.
“He's been doing this all year, so
it was nice to see it on a bigger stage,” Christianson said.
“We had guys in foul trouble. Like I told them
after the game, the thing I like about them is they always stay composed. Our
big gun is on the bench with foul trouble and everyone was able to calm the
storm, stay ready, stay composed and trust our preparation that we’ve had all
year. It worked out for us.”
Border West was led by Clint Determan with 19
points and Dylan Bainbridge with 12.
Cherry will play Russell-Tyler-Ruthton in Friday’s
semifinals at Target Center. The Knights defeated Nevis 80-62. In the other
Class A quarterfinals, New Life Academy defeated Sacred Heart 62-46 and Spring
Grove met Mankato Loyola.
A Five-Day Tournament?
The
Timberwolves had a home game Wednesday night, making Target Center unavailable
for high school games that day and causing the tournaments to be held over five
days instead of the usual four. The largest impact is on the Class 2A quarterfinal
winners. Those games were played Tuesday, with the semifinals Thursday and
championship game Saturday.
--MSHSL media specialist John Millea has been the leading voice of
Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn
and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts.
Contact John at jmillea@mshsl.org
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