Above: Leah Utities didn’t get her hand on this pass, but she did intercept many passes and had a ton of steals for the Vikings this year. Right: Theresa Morrin made a lot of points for the Vikings on drives through defenders to the basket. Morrin had a great season for the Vikings and will be one of the leaders coming back for her senior year.
If ever a game could have two distinct halves, this was the game.
The Cook County High School girls’ basketball team came out and gave Mountain Iron-Buhl (MIB) everything the Rangers could handle for the first half of the game in the Section 7 semifinals on Wednesday, March 7 in Duluth at UMD’s Romano gym.
The Vikings led 19-11 before MIB made a run at them, but still the Vikings went into the locker room up 30-26.
“In the first half we only had four turnovers and they only had a couple of offensive rebounds. Not only was MIB not getting any offensive rebounds, but we weren’t letting them get anywhere near the basketball and it allowed us to get our fast break going,” said Head Coach T.J. Super.
But the second half was a much different story. The Rangers have a deep team and they kept their full court press at full throttle the whole half. The effects of that defensive pressure were devastating to the Vikings, who scored a total of 5 points in the half. Meanwhile the Rangers scored 28 points to win 54-35.
At the start of the second half, said Super,” We had four turnovers in the first two minutes and they had something like 8 of their first 10 points off of offensive rebounds. The frustrating thing about it was the girls weren’t executing the plan the way they did in the first half. MIB didn’t change their press or crash the boards in any different spots, they just amped up their intensity and we didn’t match it.
“They did put their star, Buffetta, on Ashley, but Ashley didn’t score much in the first half and we were fine because other girls took advantage of the opportunities created by every set of defensive eyes watching Ashley.
“In the second half we struggled to make easy passes, catch easy passes, and finish easy shots. It was a tale of two teams, which isn’t totally surprising because our team has struggled to be consistent throughout the year.
“I give a lot of credit to MIB’s defense. It’s one of the best defensive teams that I’ve seen in the six years I’ve been here and they do keep throwing more and more bodies on the court while we’re playing seven girls,” said Super.
Ashley Deschampe led all Viking scorers with 10 points. Theresa Morrin followed with 8 points. Lily Gruber-Schulz added 6 points, Breanna Peterson had 5 points, Bekah Laky 4 points, and Jessica Berg- Collman tallied 2 points.
But the coach added, “I am very proud of our seniors and our entire team. We lost two great players last year to graduation and three starters this year to season-ending injuries. We were a team in shambles, sitting at 3-5 after a gruesome early road schedule and our girls kept buying into what we were teaching them and they regrouped as a team and figured out how to win. They played well together and were very unselfish.
“It’s a great thing when you don’t have to worry about a team thinking that “Dish” (Ashley Deschampe) was scoring too much or having an 8th grader (Lily Gruber-Schulz) start and play 36 minutes a night. They were very selfless and assumed their roles on the team, bought into the program, and kept believing in each other.
“That was the key to us winning 15 of our last 18 games and that is what made the year so enjoyable for myself,” Super said, echoing the sentiments of the Viking’s many fans.
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