Girls’ basketball: Next stop is state for Anoka

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by Jason Olson
SportsPrepZone Editor

Anoka High School can cross off girls’ basketball from the list of sports yet to make it to a state tournament.

The Tornadoes improved to 6-24 to win the Section 7AAAA championship over Cambridge-Isanti, 77-66 in overtime Friday at North Branch High School.

Ninth seeded Anoka recorded its fourth win a row while No. 3 seed Cambridge-Isanti lost its third straight section final.

“I would have never imagined in a million years that it was going to come to this,” said Anoka Coach James Fassett. “But, you know, I’m so happy. Words can’t explain it.”

Tornadoes senior captain Shauni Payeur isn’t ready for the ride that began two weeks ago to end anytime soon.

“Everyone was screaming and jumping around me, cameras were in our faces,” she said. “It was totally a surreal moment.”

Before Anoka headed out to the court, Fassett consciously changed the message from, “If we’re going to win, we need to do this,” to:

“We’re going to win because of this!”

He kept it simple in fulfilling what they started out to accomplish more than a week earlier — a trip to the state tournament.

“I don’t want to be the cinderella because this is not luck, it’s hard work because we earned everything we did,” Fassett said.

Anoka ninth grader Kyrah Fredenberg led all scorers with 24 points, freshman-teammate Claire Lundberg had 22, junior Hailee Gifford had 16 and Payeur had 15 points. Cambridge-Isanti guard Whitney Olson finished with 21 points.

“I think this team just has the heart to win,” Fredenburg said, who banked home a big three-pointer in overtime and later slashed to the bucket to give Anoka a 73-66 lead.

“We just had confidence. If our shots were open, we were going to shoot it. Coach keeps telling us all the time, ‘Keep attacking! Keep attacking!’”

The Tornadoes made six-three pointers in the first half, led by as many as 17 points and entered the break up 32-22.

“It’s been a trend for us to come out really strong and we’ve been up in every game [in the section],” Payeur said.

“We still tried to pound it inside, but the ‘3s’ started falling, so we just let them ride with it,” said the coach. “But we told the girls at halftime, ‘We can’t rely on that. We got to get back to the free throw line and keep getting inside.’”

Cambridge-Isanti wasn’t going to go quietly either as they crawled way back into the game to force overtime.

The Bluejackets used its full court press defense to disrupt Anoka combined with strong inside play by Deandra Vavra and Natalie Larson and the perimeter shooting by senior guard Whitney Olson — it worked. Olson made a trio of three-pointers late to tie the game 53-53.

“We lost our composure a little bit,” Payeur, one of the Anoka captains, stated. “To calm down always say, ‘stay right here’ and we do this thing with our hands [make a level with a forearm to symbolize emotions in check].”

The final two minutes of regulation was a frenetic back-and-forth affair; Bray delivered two big shots inside, each time putting Anoka back in the lead by one. Then with 0.3 on the clock, Cambridge-Isanti’s Olson sunk two free throws to force overtime.

“We did buckle a lot, and it was just timeouts, and patience,” Fassett said. “We had a senior on the floor, and I had to pull her over a couple of times and get in her ear and tell her ‘Be the senior leader here.’ We weathered the storm, but those type of situations are going to build character. And it’s going to make us stronger. I’ve got freshmen and sophomores playing in games like this, they’re only going to get stronger.”

Anoka won the tip in overtime and Payeur wasn’t to be denied a basket as she drove the lane to draw the foul. She then  made both free throws.

For the game, Anoka made 20-of-29 free throws, many coming during  overtime to extend the final score.

With the Tornadoes 30th game in the books, Fassett said he’s never felt so good with a 6-24 record.

“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “When I took this job [over the summer] I knew [winning] would be a process over time. It’s great to have so much success this first season and to be able to see how they’ve grown up tremendously.”

Inevitably, Anoka will set its sights on its state opponent well before the March 16 game at Target Center. Fassett said the only message he’ll send to the team is to have fun and stay in the moment, it’s only game number 31 of the season.

“I’ve thought a little bit about how serious other teams at state will take us and I don’t know if they’ll underestimate us or not, but we’ll be facing one of the teams that know the routine of being in the spotlight,” he said. “The only message I’ll have for them is to enjoy the moment, have fun and keep doing the the things we’ve been doing and things will take care of themselves.”

Isanti County News Editor Greg Hunt contributed to this story.

 

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