The Becker Bulldog girls basketball team used tenacious defense, dogged determination and sleek poise to bring down the Willmar Cardinals, 51-35 in the Section 5AAA finals in Buffalo Thursday night.
Riding the coattails of senior guard Alexa Hanowski, who scored the first basket of the game, the Bulldogs went wire-to-wire to take down the Cardinals with relative ease.
Becker will play either Tuesday or Wednesday at Mariucci Arena against a yet-to-be-determined foe.
Hanowski dominated on all ends of the court and finished with a game-high 26.
Going into the game, Becker’s focus was to find a way to stop Willmar’s 6’4” center, Lexi Orlowski, who had been averaging more than 15 points a game all season long.
The focus paid off as the Bulldogs held her to just four points while the Cardinals looked puzzled on how to stop Hanowski.
Becker began the game with a two-pointer from Hanowski and one-of-two free throws from Claire Thorn to go up 3-0. Willmar came up empty on their chanc, and Hanowski put on her magic show as she nailed a three-pointer to put the ‘Dawgs up by six.
The Cardinals finally got on the board at the 11:24 mark to get within four, but Hanowski nailed another three to put Becker up 9-2 moments later.
It took Orlowski until the 4:46 mark to net her first basket, but by that time Becker had built its lead to 16-6 and were in full control.
By halftime, the score was 21-13 in favor of the Bulldogs.
Willmar got to within six two minutes into the second half, but Hanowski would have none of it. She knocked down another three at 15:38 and Abbigail Morrell made the score 26-17 when she hit a two at 13:53.
Two more points a minute later and the Bulldogs’ confidence started to swell.
Every time Willmar got their crowd excited by closing the gap, Becker would silence the Card fans with twos and threes from Hanowski, Whitney Raygor, Amanda Lindsay and Alex Johnson. Raygor finished with five, Lindsay with two and Johnson with six.
Other contributers for Becker were Mackenzie Kramer with two, Claire Thorn with one and Madison Kerzman with four.
As the clock wound down and desperation mounting for Willmar, the Cardinals executed consecutive full-court presses to try and steal the ball and tally quick baskets. However, the Bulldogs stayed composed and eventually ran out the clock on the game and the season for the Cardinals.
Afterwards, the girls gathered at center court to receive their section first place medals and the trophy many coveted.
No one more than Hanowski, who carried the team to a 16-point victory.
“I’m so happy,” she said after the game. “I’ve been working towards this my entire high school career and I cannot imagine a better way than to get a chance to go to state.”
Hanowski wasn’t given any direction on how to play nor was she designed to be the “go-to” player. She just happened to get hot and when she had a chance, she wasn’t going to let anyone stop her.
“I was just feeling it,” she said. “I was feeling that this could be my last game, so I played like every time we had the ball was potentially our last possession.”
Johnson, who along with Kerzman, Thorn and Mackenzie Swanson were tasked to slow down Orlowski under the basket, was beaming with pride following the big win.
“This is amazing,” she said. “I’ve never felt this great in my whole life. It’s a dream come true.”
Johnson praised Hanowski and also gave kudos to the rest of the team that played so hard Thursday and throughout the season.
“It was all of us. All of us had to be good on defense. All of us had to bring our game strong and all of us coming together.”
Willmar was led by Heidi Sellman, who had 12 points.
Becker 48, Big Lake 40
Alexa Hanowski scored 14 points and Abbigail Morrell had 10 as the third-seeded Bulldogs knocked off the second-seeded Hornets in a Section 5-3A semifinal in Buffalo Saturday night.
Nervousness, anxiety and suspense filled the gymnasium last weekend as two familiar foes faced off against each other in the Section 5AAA semi-finals. In their only other meeting this year back on Dec. 11, the Lady Bulldogs fell to the Hornets by seven, 49-42.
Becker reversed that trend and beat the Hornets by eight in Buffalo. The Hornets were led by Paige Domyahn with 17.
For the first six minutes, neither team could do much as coaches on both sides tried to calm their nerves. Finally, at the 12-minute mark, Becker broke out to a 6-5 lead when Jalissa Johnson nailed a three-pointer. That jump-started the Bulldogs and outside shooting and fantastic defense inside drove them to the close win.
Hanowski showed her deftness as she scored on a fast break to open things up and that was followed by a two-point runner from Mackenzie Kramer.
Hanowski closed out the first half by nailing two critical free throws and Becker had a nice, 10-point lead at 22-12 heading into halftime.
But the Hornets had hope as Becker’s top scorer and rebounder, Alex Johnson had committed her fourth foul with two minutes to go in the half and was still scoreless. She was benched by Coach Paul Lindsay until the eight minute mark of the second half.
With Johnson out, the Hornets began taking advantage of the smaller and less-formidable Bulldogs by driving the lane for field goals and they eventually climbed back in the game at 24-21.
Johnson came back in at the 8:50 mark and she would eventually tally a couple paramount field goals to finish with four points on the day. At 7:57, Becker’s Whitney Raygor knocked down a huge three-pointer to put Becker back up by seven at 33-26.
On two occasions, Big Lake mounted comebacks and got within four points of the Bulldogs at 40-36 and 44-40, but their only course of action the rest of the way was to commit fouls to stop the clock and hope for misses.
The Bulldogs didn’t let the pressure get to them in the end and finished off the Hornets by notching free points from the charity stripe.
With Johnson in foul trouble most of the game, Becker had to rely on its outside shooting and balanced scoring from seven different players. Becker finished going 22-of-27 from the free throw line while Big Lake was 16-of-25.
Becker scoring: Hanowski 14; Raygor 11, Morrell 10, Kramer 6, Johnson 4, Rachel Vogl 2 and Claire Thorn 1.
Big Lake scoring: Domyahn 17, Maddie Bisbee 10, Emma Anderson 5, Kelsey Nelson 4 and Kelly Jochum 4.
Johnson Honored
Alex Johnson was named Athlete of the Week by the St. Cloud Times for her incredible growth as a basketball player with the Becker Bulldog basketball program.
In the article written by Tom Elliott, Johnson mentioned how important last summer’s recreational basketball league played in her maturation and abilities.
“I think last summer helped me this year,” she said. “I realized that I was going to be a senior and that college was coming.”
With her senior year of sports ending this Spring, Johnson knew she had to step things up to possibly get a shot at continuing her basketball career at a higher level.
“ I knew if I wanted to play in college, I needed to set up, play better and be more of a leader,” she told Elliott.
Johnson leads Becker with 17.5 points, 10.7 rebounds and 2.5 blocked shots per game. She is a 71 percent free-throw shooter after making 58 percent last season. She is shooting 68 percent from the field after shooting 61 percent last year.
