WORTHINGTON -- The Fairmont High School girls basketball team got off to an outstanding start against Luverne Friday night in the South Section 3AA championship game at Worthington High School. And though LHS had the momentum through most of the second half, the final result went Fairmont’s way, 53-42.
With the win, Fairmont will play Montevideo, a 41-26 winner over New London-Spicer in the northern half of the section, for a state tournament berth. The game will be next Friday at 8 p.m. at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall.
Montevideo is the north’s top seed. Fairmont is the second seed of the south.
FHS used a pair of steals, a block and a travel call against Luverne to score the first seven points on Friday. The score was 26-6 at the five-minute mark and 31-15 at the half.
But Luverne didn’t earn the No. 1 south seed for nothing, and immediately in the second half the Cardinals used sisters Elizabeth and Christina Wagner to score inside to cut their deficit. The Wagners -- who are fine post players -- move smoothly to the basket with or without the ball, and they know how to finish. On Friday when they got their hands on the ball they usually scored.
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An easy Elizabeth Wagner shot inside made the score 37-27 at the 11-minute mark. At 5:16 a 3-pointer by Christina put her team within eight, 44-36. With under two minutes to go, the score was 46-40. After that, Fairmont played smart basketball, protecting its possessions.
“We just built ourselves too big of a hole and didn’t give ourselves enough time. I think we were outworked (in the first half). I think that was the first time all season we were outworked,” said LHS head coach TJ Newgard. “I think we were a little bit tentative.”
The result upped Fairmont’s record to 24-3. Luverne finished its season at 23-5.
In a December matchup between the two teams, Luverne won, 45-49. Fairmont senior forward Cadence Becker, who scored 18 points in the game, said she and her teammates wanted revenge.
“We came out with a lot of fire. It was a good team atmosphere in the locker room,” she said.
For much of the second half, however, Fairmont seemed to lose its fire, allowing the Wagners too many touches inside and failing to rebound the ball as it did in the first half.
The problem seemed mainly an inability to box out.
“That was something Coach J (Sara Junkermeier) was getting on us about. Every time-out, she was talking about boxing out,” Becker said.
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Luverne’s game plan was to get the ball to the Wagners, said Newgard. But it took a while for the game plan to kick in.
“We just didn’t execute in the first half. We did some good things in the second half, but just built ourselves too big a hole,” Newgard explained.
Emma Gudahl, a senior guard, led Fairmont with 19 points.
For Luverne, Elizabeth Wagner finished with 21. Christina had 11.
Luverne 15 42
Fairmont 31 53
