Monthly Archives: March 2012

Hennen’s views on fighting in hockey haven’t changed much

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During my interview with Alexandria’s Scott Hennen last week I was curious to see how his views on fighting in hockey might have changed since having the biggest scare of his life because of a fight he got in on the ice last summer.

Hennen had emergency brain surgery at the St. Cloud Hospital last summer after hitting his head on the ice as the fight was coming to an end during a tryout camp for the Granite City Lumberjacks. You can read Hennen’s whole story in this article in today’s Echo Press.

It was the first time Hennen had ever been in a hockey fight. Near the end of our interview, I asked him if his views on fighting in hockey had changed at all since that day. He admitted that he has mixed emotions about seeing it, but feels it still has its place in the game.

“There is a reason for it to be in hockey,” Hennen said. “Not everybody agrees with that, but if someone jumps your goalie, you have to stand up for him…I kind of still feel the same way [as before the fight], but when it is a stupid reason to fight, it’s kind of like, ‘Why are you guys doing this?’ I kind of cringe when I see it or see people’s heads hit the ice.”

It is one of the more talked about topics in hockey right now. John Branch of the New York Times wrote a telling piece this past winter as he chronicled the life of former Wild enforcer Derek Boogaard after his death. Branch goes in-depth to describe what it was like growing up for Boogaard knowing his ticket to the NHL would be as a fighter and how all those punches eventually took their tole on his physical and mental health.

Fighting isn’t allowed in high school or college hockey, but it is in junior leagues like the North American Hockey League. The Alexandria Blizzard were recently a part of one that got the NAHL’s attention when the entire Aberdeen line jumped the Blizzard players at the drop of the puck in the third period during a game played on March 10.

I asked Blizzard head coach Doc DelCastillo about his views on fighting at this level when I interviewed him for the Hennen piece last week. The popular consensus among those involved in hockey is that it’s simply a part of the game.

“That’s a tough question,” DelCastillo said. “I don’t think we’re known for fighting, our team. I think we can take care of business when we need to take care of business. We’re a feeder system to college, and there’s no fighting in college, but yet, when you play hockey at the highest level, it’s part of the game. Until the rule changes, it’s part of the game.

“We have some pretty tough cats on our team this year,” DelCastillo continued. “I don’t even know if the fans have seen what a couple different guys are capable of doing on our team. When it needs to be dealt with, we deal with it, but I don’t think we’re leading the league in fights…when you come to the rink here, you’re going to see fights. That’s just a part of it, but we’re not an organization promoting it and trying to develop that.”

The NHL sets the example, and it’s clear that players have no interest in eliminating fighting anytime soon. A recent Sports Illustrated poll found that 99.5 percent of the players polled felt it belonged in the sport. That is a telling number of how ingrained it is in the culture of hockey.

Stroup stepping down as Osakis boys basketball coach

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Osakis boys basketball coach Chris Stroup handed in his resignation recently after leading the Silverstreaks’ program for the past 10 seasons.

Games, practice time and scouting trips don’t leave a lot of time for other things in a coach’s life, and that’s ultimately what led to Stroup stepping away. He felt it was time to devote more time to his family, specifically his daughters, Abby, 8th grade, and Jordyn, 5th grade, as they become more active in sports themselves.

Photo by Eric Morken/Echo Press: Osakis head coach Chris Stroup talked with his team during a timeout in the second half of a game in Ashby earlier this season.

“I’ve always put other people’s kids first,” Stroup said on Tuesday. “It’s time for me to step to the side and put my kids first, at least for these winter months. This year, I got to see my 8th grader play twice, and it’s only going to get worse.”

Stroup said it was a move he was thinking about coming into the season and one he was at peace with after it ended. Osakis struggled through a 2-24 season in 2010-2011. He admitted it was a year full of frustration as he tried to get players to coexist. He didn’t want to leave coaching after a season like that.

This season, with most of those same players back, the team unity started to come together. The Silverstreaks won just seven games, but it was the way they carried themselves that made this year much more enjoyable than the last.

“Last year, there was no team cohesion,” Stroup said. “This year, there was. Kids got along well. That makes a huge difference. Even if last year we don’t win anymore, if the kids are sacrificing for each other and doing things for the betterment of the team, then two wins is two wins. It’s not like we’re playing a lazy schedule. But this year we had really good team cohesion. The six, seven guys we played on a regular basis, they all got along.”

Watching that transformation with this group of players was one of the highlights of his coaching career he said. Right up there with his only state tournament appearance in 2005-06 when his team finished 31-1 and third in the Class A tournament.

“I don’t think people believe me,” Stroup said. “I had a lot of fun this year. These kids were really responsive with everything we had them do. Then certainly going to state and going 31-1 is going to be a highlight.”

Stroup said his time away from coaching will only be temporary. He plans on getting back into it when his daughters are through school and he can devote more of his time to basketball. He leaves with a 165-102 overall record as the Silverstreaks’ head coach. His teams won seven straight Prairie Conference titles from 2004-2010.

Bitzer will weigh his options after Blizzard season comes to an end

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There is no doubt that getting Michael Bitzer in an Alexandria uniform through the final few weeks of this season can’t hurt the Blizzard’s chances of retaining him next year.

How much it will help, though, remains to be seen. Bitzer joined the Blizzard last week and is in the process of getting to know his new teammates. He made a good impression on them when the standout goaltender from Moorhead got his first North American Hockey League (NAHL) win in his debut this past Saturday by stopping 30-of-31 shots in Bismarck.

“I’ve only been here a couple days but there’s a bunch of great guys,” Bitzer said when I talked to him on Monday for a story that will be in Wednesday’s issue of the Echo Press. “It’s been a really great experience. I like it so far, and we’ll see what happens this summer and go from there.”

Photo courtesy of MNhockeyhub.com

This summer is when Bitzer’s options will likely grow after the United States Hockey League (USHL) Entry Draft. It’s widely believed that Bitzer will be taken in the draft in May after his stock within the league rose after an already strong senior season was capped off with a great showing at the Minnesota state tournament.

One thing Bitzer said he won’t forget is the faith Alexandria showed in him when the Blizzard signed him to a tender in early December. In the end, though, he has to decide what is best for him and his chances of playing Division I hockey somewhere.

“Them having faith in me right away and giving me the opportunity to play right away will definitely throw a little weight their way,” Bitzer said. “But we’ll see. Whatever options are best for me. We’ll just see what happens. I want to concentrate on what’s happening now and on the rest of the season. I’ll weigh my options and see what happens when we get to that.”

Bitzer has already sacrificed quite a bit to come to Alexandria after finishing his season with the Spuds. He had to give up baseball this spring and the rest of his high school career with his friends in Moorhead. He is currently taking online courses that will allow him to finish up his education and graduate with his diploma from Moorhead this semester.

Bazzani picking up where he left off at Eastern Kentucky

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No player made more of a name for himself in a Beetles uniform last summer than Eastern Kentucky pitcher Anthony Bazzani.

The hard-throwing right hander put his name on the MLB draft radar with a 1.45 ERA and  70 strikeouts in just 49 2/3 innings during the regular season. Then Beetles field manager Matt Hancock thought a big junior season at Eastern Kentucky could catapult him up draft boards this summer.

So far, so good on that front. Bazzani has picked up right where he left off in his first seven appearances with the Colonels this spring. In eight innings, Bazzani has allowed just one earned run and fanned eight. The Beetles expect him back in Alexandria this summer as of right now.

The June draft could change those plans if he gets drafted and works out a deal to start his professional career instead of returning for his senior year at EKU. Baseball America named him the 80th best college prospect in the country this past winter.

His Colonels teammate and another former Beetles pitcher, Matt Fyffe, has also gotten off to a fast start. Fyffe was hoping to get drafted last year but teams wanted to see more from him after coming off Tommy John surgery the year before.

Fyffe could do a lot for his draft stock with a solid senior season at EKU. He couldn’t have gotten off to a much better start to the spring. He is 3-0 with a 1.06 ERA in six appearances. He has struck out 14 and allowed just four runs, two earned, in 17 innings pitched.

Three keys to an Alexandria upset of Fergus Falls tonight

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The Alexandria girls’ basketball team will need a few things to go its way tonight if the Cardinals are going to pull off the upset against Fergus Falls in the 8AAA title game.

The Otters come into the game 27-1 with their only loss of the year coming to Hawley in a 41-37 game. I talked to someone familiar with that game and was told that the Nuggets got an early lead and did everything they could to slow down the pace from that point on.

That’s good in theory, but it might not do the Cardinals a lot of good. A slow pace isn’t Alexandria’s game. This team is at its best when its getting up and down the court. With that said, here are three things I think Alexandria has to do to give itself a chance at beating the second-ranked Otters.

1. Create turnovers: This is always Alexandria’s bread and butter. The Cardinals created 29 turnovers against Thief River Falls last Saturday, which helped them blow the game open in the second half.

Photo by Eric Morken/Echo Press: Lauren Trumm drove past the Otters' Brianna Rasmusson the last time these two teams played in the regular-season finale.

In talking to head coach Wendy Kohler, I get the sense that she has a few things she’s looking to break out to try and throw Fergus Falls off its game tonight. I asked her what they had to do to slow down such a balanced Otters team after they lost to them in the regular season finale. She wouldn’t expand too much, but Kohler said that they have a few tricks up their sleeve if they were to meet Fergus Falls in the championship.

It will be interesting to see what she has in mind on defense. The Cardinals pressure caused the Otters some problems in the first half the last time these two teams met. They trailed by just one at the break before missed free throws ended up hurting their chances of staying close in the second half.

There’s no question that Fergus Falls has the guards to handle pressure. Whether or not Alexandria can fluster them enough to create some takeaways and some easy scoring chances on the break could play a big part in how this game turns out.

2. Deliver the first punch: I don’t think there’s any question that a fast start would do wonders for Alexandria.

The Otters have been in this situation before. They beat Alexandria twice during the regular season last year before the Cardinals punched their ticket to state with a 46-40 win in the 8AAA title game. I don’t foresee Fergus Falls coming into this game thinking its going to roll over Alexandria.

It will be up to the Cardinals to plant some doubt in their minds. The times I’ve seen Fergus Falls in person this year, the Otters have played with a confidence and a swagger that all good teams have.

That likely comes from having three great seniors in Haylie Zenner, Sydney Schultz and Mariah Monke to rely heavily on. The Otters have to know how important it is to get the job done this season. If Alexandria can jump on them early, who knows how they will respond to some early pressure?

3. Have fun with this moment: It sounds cliche but it’s important that the Cardinals take the court with this attitude. Alexandria can’t play scared if its going to get the win tonight, and from talking to players and coaches after their win over Thief River Falls, I don’t think they will.

“This is life at its best for a 16-17-year-old girl,” Kohler said. “It’s just been great to see these girls come together as a team. Taking it one game at a time has been our theme, and we are really excited that we positioned ourselves as a unit to be able to have another chance to play Fergus.”

Her players echoed that sentiment. Whitney Gesell broke into a huge smile when I asked her how excited this team is to get a third shot at the Otters. Lauren Trumm did the same.

“We’re pumped up,” Trumm said. “We’re ready to go. We’ll have a great week of practice, and we’ll go out and give it our all.”

That is the perfect mindset to take into this game. It’s the playoffs. Anything can happen and both teams know that heading into tonight. It should be fun when the two teams tip off at 7 p.m. at the University of Minnesota-Moorhead.

Doyle, Vogeler, Witt talk about renewed expectations in an open 8AAA field

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The Cardinal boys’ basketball team played like a weight had been lifted off its shoulders on Tuesday night.

Alexandria came into the first round of the Section 8AAA tournament losers of three straight games and five of six overall. On top of that was five straight years of losing in the opening round of the playoffs and a team that had already beaten them twice this season looking to extend that to six.

Instead of feeling the pressure, Alexandria played like it had been given new life after a disappointing regular season. The Cardinals jumped on Sauk Rapids-Rice 32-13 at the half behind four threes from sophomore John Vogeler. They went on to win 67-40 to advance to the 8AAA semifinals against top-seeded Detroit Lakes this Saturday.

I talked to Vogeler, junior Logan Doyle and head coach Forrest Witt after the game about a wide open section field and where they think their team stands going into the semifinals. You can find that story in tomorrow’s issue of the Echo Press. Here is the rest of my interview with them that I wasn’t able to get into the print edition.

Logan Doyle

EM: After having not advanced past the first round in so long, how big of a mental hurdle was this for you guys to get past?

LD: That was the fist hurdle we wanted to overcome. We said at the beginning of the season that we wanted to get a home playoff game. We did that. This first one’s huge. This gets all the jitters out of the way. Coach said it’s 0-0 in the playoffs. Anybody can beat anybody, and we showed that tonight.

EM: Holding leads has been as issue throughout the regular season. Tonight, you are up by 20 points early in the second half before Sauk Rapids made a run to cut it to 10 with plenty of time left. What was different tonight that allowed you guys to weather that storm and pull away down the stretch?

Photo by Eric Morken/Echo Press: Doyle fought for position on the block against Sauk Rapids' Felipe Villalaz on Tuesday night.

LD: Coaches always said when they’re making a run, you can’t fight each other. You have to keep your goal in mind. You can’t play black on black and against white. You all have to play together and have the same goal in mind. We were focused on that. No one was saying, ‘I’m going to put the team on my back.’ It was a team effort. One guy wasn’t going to do it tonight. We all had to chip in.”

EM: During that Sauk Rapids run did you ever look at it and say, ‘Oh no, here we go again?” Or was there a different feel tonight?

LD: It’s always in the back of your mind. When you’re up 20, and they cut it to 10, you’re like, we can’t lose this way again. We’ve just had too many of them slip away. I think we all came together and just said there’s no way we’re losing this game. You have to finish games.

EM: John Vogeler was able to really extend the defense with his five three pointers in the game. How much does that help out the rest of this offense?

LD: It opens up the whole floor. With Vogeler, pretty much anywhere on this side of half court, he can let it fly if he’s feeling it and there’s nothing you can do about it. That makes them have to play tough defense up in his grill. That opens up the whole rest of the floor.

EM: You guys have already beaten top-seeded Detroit Lakes this season. The South’s No. 1 seed Little Falls has already lost to fourth-seeded Sartell, opening things up even more in the section. What is your mindset going forward here in what looks like a wide open field?

LD: After we lost to Fergus Falls (in the regular season finale), we all got together as a team. Buck [Smith] kind of took control and said, ‘Guys, I don’t care who scores the most points. I don’t care if we win 14-13. I just know we can win our section and get to state.’ He just said think of how cool it would be for everyone to come down and cheer us on. We all just said, that’s within our reach. If we win tonight, we beat the other top seeds in our section. We wanted to play in St. Cloud. That was the first step, and then we want to play in the Target Center.

John Vogeler

EM: How does it feel to get this win, knowing how long it has been since Alexandria won a first-round playoff game.

JV: Feels great, fantastic. Our whole week we were preparing to get this win. Coaches were emphasizing box out, and we didn’t do that in the last two weeks and we lost. We turned that around. Boxing out was a key.

EM: After the way things have gone in the regular season with losing leads, how nice was it to weather a run that they made in the second half and pull away in the end?

Photo by Eric Morken/Echo Press: Vogeler looked for an open teammate as the Storm's Markel Campbell tried to get out on him on defense.

JV: It was fantastic. It was a blessing that we could pull it off. I believe we had like six games this season where we were up or tied at the half, and we end up falling apart in the second half. We stayed poised. Our point guards had good court vision, handled the ball very well, looked to our bigs and executed plays.

EM: What is the confidence level like right now with this team after getting such a convincing win?

JV: We’re pretty confident right now. We’re just happy we got the win because we hadn’t done that in forever. We beat Detroit Lakes during the regular season, but that doesn’t count now. It’s playoffs, one and done. We’re just trying to stay focused. Play like we did today and we should be fine.

EM: Your defense was instrumental in building that big early lead after holding them to just 13 points in the first half.

JV: We worked very hard on our zone and we communicated. That’s all the coaches said all week was communicate, communicate, communicate. We did that. We called out screens, called out back doors, got some steals. The whole year we haven’t been really a team. We’ve had single players. All of us have been, but we played like a team today. We communicated and played like a real basketball team.

Head coach Forrest Witt

EM: How nice was it to see this team put everything together tonight at the most important time of the season?

FW: It was great. We’ve been talking consistently about defending and rebounding and all those little things that are so controllable every single night. We haven’t done that consistently from game to game, but tonight I think something stuck with them. It was a physical game and Sauk Rapids has some good athletes and guys that go to the glass hard, and we won that toughness battle that you have to win in playoff games.

EM: John got hot there in the first half, hitting those four threes before the break. How important was it to see some perimeter shots fall early like that?

FW: It was huge. Our outside shooting has been a little bit inconsistent this year, and I think everybody can just breathe when someone hits shots like that. John has proven it. He’s done that at that level where he’s hit four in a row in four, five different games. Once he figures out how to get those shots within the flow of our offense, he’s really going to be effective. Right now, some of those are deep threes, and if we miss those it takes us out of the flow of our offense, but it’s something that he’ll learn.

EM: This is a team that had beaten you twice already this season. Were you surprised, not that you won, but how you were able to win by 27 points?

FW: To be honest, yeah, a little bit. It was one of those things where we challenged them in practice this week. It’s one and done. You can be home on Wednesday after school or we can come back here and practice and have a few more and see what happens. The effort and energy and the will to win was impressive. It’s something we’ve been looking for for a while. I wish we would have got it a little earlier, but it’s a new season and we’ll take it now as opposed to at one point in the regular season.

EM: The playoffs allow teams to kind of start over. After a disappointing regular season, do you get the sense that that’s how your kids looked at it?

FW: We told them coming down the stretch, the playoffs are a new season. It doesn’t matter if you’re a one seed or an eight seed, top of the conference or bottom of the conference. We knew what we were capable of. It was just a matter of doing it consistently. Hats off to our guys because they played with heart and passion that wins basketball games like this and can win basketball games in the semifinals and the finals.

Cardinal girls run past Prowlers and into the section title game

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Monday it was 41-0. Tonight it was 8-0 and 18-0. Those are the scoring runs the Alexandria girls’ basketball team has put together in the opening two rounds of the Section 8AAA playoffs.

Thief River Falls survived that initial 8-0 run to start the game at St. Cloud State University on Saturday night. The Prowlers bounced back and tied the game at 20 apiece with five minutes to go in the first half.

The Cardinals responded with an 11-0 run to end the half. They stretched that to 18 straight points with seven more to open the second on their way to a relatively stress free 69-46 win to secure a rematch with Fergus Falls in the section title game.

“The good teams can put in a game plan and then they can adjust,” Alexandria head coach Wendy Kohler said. “That’s huge. We had a game plan right away, and we decided to drop the press, not pick up the early fouls and be able to match up on the shooters right away instead of giving them easy looks. I just thought our girls really adjusted. That’s the thing. You got to be able to adjust if you want to advance against a good team like Thief Rivers.”

Photo by Eric Morken/Echo Press: Alexandria's Lauren Trumm (right) went to the ground to fight for a loose ball with the Prowlers' Kristyn Scholin on Saturday night.

It also helps having someone like Lauren Trumm leading the way. The senior guard had maybe the best game of her career on a night when she did a little of everything, including scoring a game-high 36 points. She almost had a triple-double as she added 12 steals, seven assists and five rebounds.

“It’s so much fun playing with her,” Whitney Gesell said after finishing with seven points herself. “She’s probably the most unselfish person I’ve ever met. It’s fun to throw her the ball and see her go up for the layup, and she comes down and has that huge smile on her face.”

Trumm is never too comfortable talking about her own accomplishments. She credited her teammates after the game on setting her up for a lot of easy looks on the break.

“My teammates got tips and they were just throwing it to me,” she said. “So I was running. More than half the points I got, I [owe] to my teammates because they did just as much work as me.”

Photo by Eric Morken/Echo Press: Junior Kalli Bowser shot over a defender in the second half against Thief River Falls. Bowser led Alexandria on the boards with 11 rebounds.

Trumm admitted she thought about how her career could come to an end coming into the night against a Prowlers team that was 23-3. If she was nervous after the tip, she didn’t show it. Trumm shot 14-of-21 from the field and 8-of-10 from the free throw line. Amanda Christianson added 12 points and Kalli Bowser had eight points and 11 rebounds.

“I didn’t want it to end tonight,” Trumm said. “I wanted that extra week. I wanted to give it a shot. I got jitters on the bus ride here, thinking this could be it, but we really played together. We were just ready to go. Everybody.”

Credit could be given all around on a night when Alexandria did almost everything right. The Cardinals shot 54 percent from the field (26-50), outrebounded Thief River Falls 31-20 and had 19 steals.

That defense made just getting shots hard to come by for the Prowlers. Thief River Falls didn’t shoot that poorly from the field, connecting on 46 percent. The problem was 29 turnovers. Alexandria took 11 more shots than the Prowlers, many of which were easy looks on the break after creating takeaways.

“I think we worked really hard as a team,” Gesell said. “I think that contributed to it a lot. We pushed the ball really well. Everyone ran the court really hard.”

That set up the rematch of last year’s section title game with Fergus Falls. The Otters made easy work of Sartell in game one at SCSU, beating the Sabres 61-43 to move to 27-1 on the season.

Things look a lot like last year heading into the match-up. The Otters won both regular season games these two teams played last season. The same thing happened this year as Fergus Falls won the two games by a combined 28 points.

The Cardinals are hoping for a similar result in game three as the 46-40 win they had over the Otters in the section title game last March. Fergus Falls has the same personnel back from that game and has no doubt become a better team with a year of experience.

The Cardinals wanted another shot at them after losing on their home court in the regular season finale. Now they’ll get it when the two teams tip off this Friday at 7 p.m. at Minnesota State University-Moorhead.

“We are really excited that we positioned ourselves as a unit to play Fergus,” Kohler said. “I mean, they’re a very good basketball team. They’re loaded. They’re talented from top to bottom. We’re going to have to play a good game. We’re going to have to play together, and we’ll have a good game plan in place and take the court on Friday night.”

Chargers’ win sets up a likely historic night in Morris

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Brandon-Evansville’s career scoring leader, Heather Strese, has one more milestone to check off her list before her career comes to an end with the Chargers this season.

Strese went into last night’s Section 6A South quarterfinal game against Underwood needing 31 points to become the first player in school history to reach 2,000 in her career. The Rockets let it be known early that it wasn’t going to happen on their watch as Underwood sent constant double and triple teams at her throughout the night.

Photo by Eric Morken/Echo Press: Heather Strese looked for an open teammate as Underwood's Carly Masloski, right, and Jasmine Richey double-teammed her on the block on Thursday night.

“I wasn’t expecting on getting it tonight,” Strese said after her team persevered for a 50-48 win in overtime. “I knew Underwood was going to come out with two, three people on me. I knew I wasn’t going to get it, so I’m not disappointed.”

Strese can say that because she knows she’ll have a much better shot at reaching the milestone against Hancock in the subsection semifinals on Saturday night.

Strese isn’t shy about admitting how much reaching 2,000 points would mean to her. She passed her sister, Megan, to become the career scoring leader at Brandon-Evansville earlier this season. Now she needs just 13 points to grab a more significant milestone after scoring 18 against the Rockets last night.

“That’s by far my goal,” she said. “I can barely sleep at night. I literally dream about it. It’s constantly what I think about, but coming out here and playing, I didn’t think about it once tonight. I think that helped take the pressure off.”

The way Strese played indicated that she really didn’t have that on her mind once she hit the floor. She didn’t force shots when the Rockets swarmed her from all sides in the post. Instead, she relied on her teammates to make shots to get the win.

It looked like that might backfire in the first half. The Rockets dared the Chargers’ guards to shoot from the perimeter throughout the entire night. That strategy worked for Underwood in the first half as Brandon-Evansville hit just one three on its way to  11 points by the break.

The Rockets couldn’t take advantage of that on their own offensive end. They trailed most of the half before Carly Masloski scored six straight points in the final two minutes to give her team a four-point lead at the half.

They carried that momentum into the opening minutes of the second half. Underwood stretched its lead to double digits with around 10 minutes to go. At that point, Brandon-Evansville started to make just enough shots to get back in it. Elizabeth Vinson came off the bench and started it with a three that seemed to take some pressure off her and her teammates.

“That kind of opened the floodgates,” head coach Dick Simpon said. “It was a big shot from her.”

Brandon-Evansville went on to take a seven-point lead with 1:21 left in the game before Underwood made a comeback of its own. Strese had a chance to make it a two-possession game in the final minute but two missed free throws gave the Rockets a chance. Karin Mortenson took advantage by hitting a three that eventually forced overtime with the two teams tied at 45 apiece.

Photo by Eric Morken/Echo Press: Sophomore Kinsley Randt hit the eventual game winner in overtime as Brandon-Evansville survived its opening round game against Underwood.

Brandon-Evansville’s Kinsley Randt stepped up and hit the biggest shot in the extra session. In a tie game in the final minute, the sophomore guard passed up two wide open looks from the right wing as her defender doubled Strese down in the post. Randt fed the ball to Strese in a crowd, who immediately kicked it back out to Randt. This time, she made Underwood pay for ignoring her as she drained a jumper from just inside the three-point line that proved to be the game winner.

“It felt good,” Randt said. “I felt like I can do it, and that I can help out this team.”

Strese couldn’t have been happier for her on a night when the Rockets were daring Randt and other perimeter players to beat them.

“I’m glad she was confident in making it,” Strese said of Randt. “I know the first time when she was completely wide open, it might not have been in rhythm. Giving it back to her, I was reassuring her, ‘you need to shoot it because I can’t.’ I’m triple-teamed, so I can’t do anything. I’m glad everyone stepped up and made their shots in the second half.”

Randt finished with nine points on the night. Sophomore Megan Kokett also hit a couple important threes on her way to 11 points, while Megan Friedrich finished with eight. It was their ability to hit enough shots that proved to be the difference in the end.

“The other kids came through,” Simpon said. “They really did. Heather has carried us so many games, and the other kids came through in the second half and hit some shots. That was it.”

That set up the rematch with a 20-4 Hancock team tomorrow at 8 p.m. on the University of Minnesota-Morris campus. The Owls won 51-37 the only time these two teams met in the regular season on December 1. Strese had 13 points that night. She’ll need at least that many again to reach the final milestone in her already storied career with the Chargers.

* Check out photos than can be purchased from this game on the photo gallery.