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Moving on: St. Mary’s girls advance to state with win over WEM

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s senior Sydney Windschitl (middle) raises her fist in celebration as her teammates huddle around after winning the Section 2A title at Sibley East High School on Thursday and advancing to the state tournament.

ARLINGTON — After falling short of the state tournament last season at the hands of Waterville-Elysian-Morristown in the Section 2A finals game, Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s was able to right its wrong this season and take down WEM 64-59 in the Section 2A girls’ basketball finals at Sibley East High School.

With the win, the undefeated Knights (24-0) move on to the Class A State Girls’ Basketball Tournament. The state quarterfinals will be played on Tuesday and Wednesday, and who and where the Knights will play will be determined Saturday.

The Knights were led by Madison Mathiowetz’s 27 points, while Sydney Windschitl added 16 points and Reagan Severson had 12.

With the Knights ahead by 5, WEM got a quick basket under the hoop with 4.4 seconds left and had to burn a timeout down 62-59. After Windschitl got the ball and was fouled for double-bonus free throws, she calmly sank both with 2.9 seconds left to put things out of reach.

Thursday’s win was the toughest win the Knights have pulled off this season since the last time they defeated WEM in a regular-season matchup in Sleepy Eye three weeks ago by a score of 62-58.

Knights head coach Bruce Woitas said that the second matchup this season with WEM was another battle.

“Our kids battled,” Woitas said. “We played them earlier [March 5], which was a great nonconference game game — we’re going to go play them next year, too, in a nonconference game. It was just back and forth. Obviously, two teams that are very strong defensively — we saw that in the first half. We’re used to scoring maybe 40 points in the half — we had 21, they had 23. We came out in the second half, they kind of made a run, we answered that. We kind of got that advantage — two, two and a half minutes we just had to pull it out, and it worked out. Almost didn’t, but it worked out.”

Woitas also credited Windschitl’s two clutch free throws late for sealing the deal and said that it’s been a blessing to work with this group for so many years.

The Knights struggled to shoot at a high percentage in the first half and also turned the ball over enough to allow WEM to jump out to an early 15-5 lead after a bucket inside by Sadie Oorlog. But the Knights’ defense was good enough to allow them to battle back and cut their deficit to 21-19 after a bucket inside by Mathiowetz with less than two minutes left in the first half.

After WEM got a bucket inside soon after, Severson answered with a spin move and basket in the paint to have the Knights down 23-21 at the half.

Mathiowetz said despite struggling to get her shot to fall in the first half, her teammates picked her up and everyone collectively improved in the second half.

“My shots didn’t fall in the first half, but that happens, and I thought that my teammates did a great job of picking up the slack,” Mathiowetz said. “They picked up the slack, and they kept us in the game until the second half, where we all just played extremely well. We moved the ball well, we got our shots off that we’re used to getting. It was great.”

The Buccaneers increased their lead to 36-28 after a bucket in the paint by Toryn Richards, but a 3 by Mathiowetz, a 3 by Severson and layup by Windschitl tied things up at 36. Windschitl then sank a pair of free throws to give the Knights the lead before Emma Currans knocked down a long jumper to put St. Mary’s up 40-36.

WEM climbed back and led 43-40 before Currans hit a 3 and Mathiowetz drove inside to give the Knights the lead back at 45-43. WEM tied it at 45-all shortly after but was never able to retake the lead in the final minutes.

“We beat them one time in the season, but we knew they were going to come back and it was going to be hard,” Windschitl said. “But we knew we could do it if we just powered through it. And it means everything that we get the chance to play at the state tournament.”

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