The unselfishness is paying off as the Bengals are going to the Minnesota Girls State Basketball Tournament for the first time since 2009.
The Bengals got quite a sendoff Tuesday morning as there was a spirited pep rally on campus.
“Honestly I don’t think it’s set in with me yet,” said Blaine coach Alex Walz.
This is Walz’s first season in charge of the Bengals and so far he has pushed all the right buttons with his team.
“We are so selfless,” Walz said. “It’s just really fun to watch. Anybody can go off any night… Going into this summer we talked about how we just really wanted to emphasize we over me. That’s something our seniors came up with.”
The “we over me” m.o. has paid off for the Bengals as they have a 21-8 record. Blaine threw a knockout punch at top-seed Forest Lake last week to win the section 7 title.
Bengals forward Naddy Barry is still replaying that magical moment.
“Honestly my mind was racing,” Barry said. “I was just thinking we did it, we did it. Before the season I felt like a lot of people doubted us. We were ranked last in our section so just being that Cinderella story this entire season and end it with going to state just made me so happy and I was like, we did it. We beat all our doubters. We did it.”
Barn-bound
Blaine guard Marlie Janssen was ecstatic after the Bengals finally punched their ticket to state.
“It feels great,” Janssen said. “We’ve worked so hard for it and we’ve done everything we can to prepare for moments like this and I feel like we made our whole city proud and all of our parents proud and it just feels surreal that we actually did it.”
Next up for Blaine is a trip to The Barn on the U of M campus for a Wednesday morning game against top-seed Hopkins.
Bengals guard Rosie Rekucki believes Blaine’s winning ways will continue.
“I think we all just wanted to do this for ourselves and I think it’s so cool that we also got to prove everybody wrong in the process,” Rekucki said. “Who doesn’t want to do that?”
Tipoff for the Bengals-Royals game is at 10 am.
