COON RAPIDS -- Minnesota West's women's basketball season came to an end Saturday with a 68-65 heartbreaker to Rochester in the Region 13A semifinals.
After taking a 42-33 lead into the halftime break, the Lady Jays were not the same basketball team, turning the ball over 18 times in the second frame.
"It was a tale of two halves," MW coach Mike Fury said. "The turnovers in the second half just killed us."
MW's Alyson Drooger hit a shot with 12 seconds left to make it 66-65 Rochester. After Rochester hit two free throws, the Lady Jays (19-9) were unable to get a good shot off to tie the game.
The Lady Jays shot just 11 free throws -- hitting nine -- while Rochester was 20-of-29 shooting from the charity stripe.
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"It's a telling stat not against the referees, but rather it showed how much they were taking the ball to the hole and how much we weren't," Fury said. "We only scored 23 points in the second half because we were trying to force passes.
"The turnovers and the free throws were huge. Those stats broke our backs."
Drooger led the way for the Lady Jays with 14 points, 11 rebounds, seven assists and five blocks, while Ilissa Koehl added 17 points, Katie Hadler chipped in 14 points and Katey Granstra had four points, eight rebounds and five blocks for MW.
"We outshot them we outrebounded them, but we just couldn't get it done," Fury said.
The Lady Jays are hoping to return their two starting freshman in Brittany Hulstein and Granstra and their first player off the bench in Koehl next season.
"We hope all our freshmen come back next season and we are proud of what our sophomores did for us this season," Fury said. "We'll take going 19-9 and to the region semifinals every year.
"It was a great year."
MW 42 23 -- 65
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Rochester 33 35 -- 68
Rochester (3FG-2FG-FT-TP) Fleming 1-0-2-5, Anderson 1-0-2-5, Thoreson 1-1-0-5, Kadlec 1-1-4-9, Kasten 0-3-2-8, Gehl 2-2-7-17, Bremer 0-4-1-9, Meyer 0-4-2-10. Total 6-15-20-68.
Minnesota West (3FG-2FG-FT-TP) Koehl 3-3-2-17, Kazemba 0-2-0-4, Drooger 1-4-3-14, Hadler 2-4-0-14, Hulstein 0-2-2-6, Schroeder 2-0-0-6, Granstra 0-1-2-4. Total 8-16-9-65.
