The Becker robotics team finished its competition season last Saturday with a third place finish at the MSHSL State Robotics Championships.

Becker was the top point scorer through the qualification rounds, as their robot, LockJaw, performed flawlessly.Because they were ranked as the top team, Becker was able to make their team selections to form the #1 alliance and they tapped a familiar face to join them in pursuit of the title.

Becker chose Greenbush-Middle River (GMR), who was part of last year’s state title alliance, as well as Pequot Lakes to form the #1 seeded alliance.

Pequot Lakes had suffered a devastating crash in their final qualification match, but their robot tested well in the pit and was mechanically sound so they were chosen for their offensive firepower.  Unfortunately, there was an unknown issue with the control module and the robot was unable to connect to the field system during the opening match of the finals. Therefore, Becker and GMR competed in the first round with just two robots against a three robot alliance.  The seasoned duo still almost pulled off the miracle, losing by just 17 points in the opener.

That sent Becker to the bottom bracket in the double elimination tournament where Pequot was able to make the repairs to be able to connect to the field, and the #1 alliance won the second round match by 20 points to advance.

In the third round, Pequot again had trouble connecting, a problem that ended up costing the alliance a 12 point technical foul in a match that Becker and its allies lost by a single point.

“We lost that match by one point to the eventual state champions,” Coach Alex Jurek said.  “Who knows what could have happened without the penalty points, but hats off to Rocori, Dassel-Cokato and Fairmont for winning the title for the first time.”

Becker’s Noah Bloch was honored at the tournament as one of 18 students to be named All-State in Robotics. Bloch leads Becker’s business portion of the team, performing sponsor acquisition, retention and outreach.

“Noah was very deserving of being named one of the top robotics students in the state,” Jurek said.