The first game on this Thursday of the 2015 Minnesota Girl's State Tournament was the highly-anticipated high noon showdown between Orono and Marshall. There were some who had already tagged the Spartans to get into the championship game on Saturday night but personally I had felt from the outset that Marshall would stand a very good chance of getting back to the big stage on Saturday night. I just like how they play and they play very smart. Turns out that maybe I am learning a thing or two about this game. :)
Things would be tight in the early going as expected. After Tiger senior forward Callie Graff put Marshall ahead 6-4 when she grabbed an offensive rebound for a putback and got fouled in the process and made the obligatory free throw, Orono senior guard Kiera Nelson's lay-up in transition at the 15:44 mark tied the issue at 6. It was at this juncture, though, that the Tigers made their first decisive move of the day as Marshall went on a 6-0 push; spurred by a short shot off the glass by junior forward Marah Mulso and a score in the paint by senior guard Sarah Buysse that made it 15-6 by the 12:26 mark. Orono's normally reliable shooters curiously went cold and the 2-3 defense that Marshall Head Coach Dan Westby employed at the outset of this contest contributed to that. And the Tigers continued to stay hot on the offensive end and went on a 10-4 run to provide even more separation. Buysse connected with a lay-up at the 10:52 mark and a score in the paint by fellow senior forward Morgan Saugstad with 9:15 left made it 21-10. Pairs of free throws by both Graff and Buysse completed this spurt to make it 25-10 with 7:44 left and it wasn't until Orono senior reserve guard Sydney Reiners drained a "3" from the left top area with 3:16 left did the Spartans find any semblance of offensive consistency. Still, Marshall took a rather comfortable 35-20 lead into the locker room at the half and a rowdy and raucous Orono student section that had been whooping it well before tip-off had to wonder what in the blazes was going on. Surprisingly for Marshall, it was Graff's ten points that led the way in the first half for the Tigers and a 12-25 effort from FG range for 48% and 3-5 from downtown for 60% certainly played a big part. Perhaps just as important, Marshall had a decided advantage on the boards at 20-12. Something good had to happen for Head Coach Ellen Wiese's squad early on in the second half if this thing wasn't going to get away from them and the sooner the better.
Wiese must have had those same exact thoughts in mind and whatever she told her Spartan squad in that locker room at the half certainly had a positive effect. A lay-up in transition by junior guard Danielle Jorgenson at the 17:00 mark was the start of a 12-2 Orono burst that sliced Marshall's lead down to a scant three points at 37-34 at the 12:12 mark and a short jumper from the left side by senior forward Rachel Heussner completed the run and the Orono student section and fans were going nuts by this point and there was certainly every reason to think that the Tigers, who almost certainly had the Park Center debacle in their head from a year ago, just might start looking in vain for the proverbial panic button. This time, however, Marshall dug in their heels and responded. An 9-2 run completely changed the complexion of this contest at the most critical point and Orono was caught off guard just when they thought they had brought this thing back and now the Spartans had to dig deep again in an effort to try and get within striking distance. To their credit, Orono closed the gap to four points at 46-42 when lanky 6'4" junior post Meghan Mandel connected with a pretty turnaround jumper with 5:08 left but that's as close as the Spartans would get. Two free throws by junior forward Lexi Saugstad with 4:21 left and two more by Buysse with 2:09 left gave the Tigers a 50-44 lead. Still, Orono was not ready to give up the ghost just yet. Jorgenson's lay-up in transition with just :29.4 left trimmed the Tiger lead down to 52-48 and somehow Orono just had to get a stop to have a chance to make it a one possession game again. Indeed, when the Spartans applied pressure defense on the ensuing Marshall possession, they forced that long-awaited turnover but when Marshall's Buysse intercepted an errant Orono pass with :20 left, the final Spartan threat died right there. Buysse was immediately fouled and got one charity stripe to go down out of it and Marshall pulled off an exciting 55-48 upset of #1-seeded Orono.
I asked Westby afterward if there was ever any worry or panic that might have set in when Orono went on that 12-2 run to start the second half. "Sure, some" he replied. "But we hit a couple of key buckets to start another little run of our own" he said. Actually, Westby said he was somewhat disappointed in his 2-3 zone and eventually switched to a man-to-man defense as the game progressed and it may have been a different look that might have caused more trouble for the Spartans. I asked Buysse about her huge steal with just :20 left that sealed the deal for Marshall. She noted that they practice these types of situations frequently during the season. She also noted that the team tried to keep calm during that big Orono run at the beginning of the second half and that just seemed to work for them. About getting back to the state championship game again? "It's a huge deal for us" she said and you can be that, as the leader of the squad, she'll have her teammates ready to go. Buysse finished this contest with 13 points in a very balanced Tiger scoring attack while Mandel's 14 points paced Orono in the losing effort.
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