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After a five year wait the Mineral Point girls basketball team returns to the WIAA state tournament but any resemblance to that is purely coincidental.
While the competition will be there the crowd will not. The Kohl Center is not available nor are large group gatherings allowed in Dane County. That caused the state tourney to be moved to the La Crosse Center.
Previous tournaments had teams playing their opener one day and the championship another. This year the event will take place on Friday only. The #3 seeded Pointers will take on #2 seed Bangor at 12:20 following sanitation and crowd rotation after the 9:05 opener between #1 Mishicot and #4 Fall Creek.
The crowd will be limited as only four tickets per participant are allowed. Those attended will be timed for exit after the game.
Programs can be downloaded free after Wednesday and state tournament apparel will be sold online only. The programs may be a necessity as players will be masked.
But at least there will be a tournament and someone will be a state champion, something the first Mineral Point girls team was able to accomplish.
The Pointers had one tough game and one run-away in earning the second trip for the MP girls program in school history. Strangely the toughest game was a 65-60 win in the WIAA Division 4 semifinal when the Pointers met Waterloo.
Waterloo's record of more losses than wins was deceptive as with their proximity to Dane County and the power teams from there not having gyms open to play in, many times they were the opponent. But Pirates coach Gabe Haberkorn felt that just made his team tougher.
The Pirates had the upper hand late in the game but the Pointers came back to win. Mallory Lindsey was virtually unstoppable with 20 points and six three pointers. Ella Chambers netted 17 and 6-1 Blair Watters 11. Sophomore post Kennedy Wagner was close behind with nine.
The next night and for all the marbles the Pointers hosted Fennimore, the only SWAL team to hand them a loss this past season.
But in the loss the Pointers were without some players due to COVID contact protocol. This time they had all their weapons.
And weapons they had.
Scoring handily from the inside as the Golden Eagles tried to stop the Pointers on the perimeter it was Watters and Wenger who controlled the paint. Watters put in 18 and Wenger 12.
The Pointers led by 20 at halftime as they raced to a 35-15 lead. They also put it on cruise control down the stretch with a 30-18 advantage for a 65-33 win.
Heading into the state tourney the Pointers have achieved the conference championship along with the regional and sectional crowns.
SCORE BY HALVES
Waterloo           23    37    60
Mineral Point    28    37    65
BOX SCORE
WATERLOO 60: (fg-ft-tp) Schneider 3-3-9, Webster 0-1-1, Powers 0-0-0, Jaehke 5-7-19, Asik 2-0-5, Blundell 6-0-16, Huebner 0-1-1, Wolff 1-2-4, Bauman 2-1-5  Totals 19-15/25-60 Fouls-22
MINERAL POINT 65: Lindsey 7-0-20, Aschliman 0-3-3, Chambers 6-2-17, Lawinger 0-0-0, Watters 5-1-11, Cody 0-0-0, Wenger 4-1-9, Cox 0-3-3 Totals 22-10/22-63 Fouls-20  Fouled out-Wenger
3 point goals:
W-(7) Jaehke 2, Asik 1, Blumdell 4
MP-(9) Lindsey 6, Chambers 3

SCORE BY HALVES
Mineral Point      35    30   65
Fennimore          15    18   33
BOX SCORE
FENNIMORE 33: (fg-ft-tp) Klaas 5-1-11, D. Dresen 0-0-0, Brynlee Nelson 6-0-12, K. Dresen 1-0-2, C. Faulkner 1-0-2, Braycee Nelson 2-2-6, S. Faulkner 0-0-0, French 0-0-0, Bender 0-0-0, Henkel 0-0-0  Totals 15-3-33  Fouls-11
MINERAL POINT 65: Ross 0-0-0, Nodolf 0-0-0, Lindsey 1-2-4, Aschliman 4-0-11, Murphy 0-0-0, Chambers 3-0-8, Lawinger 0-0-0, Watters 9-0-18, Cody 2-0-5, Wenger 5-2-12, Cox 3-0-6 Totals 27-46-65  Fouls-14
3 point goals
MP-(7) Aschliman 3, Chambers 2, Watters 1, Cody 1
F-(0)