ROCHESTER — Coach Scott Sorenson was quick to say that he didn’t think his Caledonia High School girls basketball team played its best offensive game of the season with a berth in the MSHSL Class AA state tournament on the line Thursday night.
But the defense was something to be proud of, he said.
Dover-Eyota presented plenty of problems, but Sorenson liked the way his top-seeded Warriors handled them in a 63-53 victory that gave them a section championship at the Rochester Mayo Civic Arena.
“They play hard, and their press is solid,” Sorenson said of the Eagles. “They have a solid player inside, a 6-2 freshman who can block shots and two shooters on the outside.
“There were certain times where we didn’t execute, but in games like this you rely on kids to make plays, and we had kids who made plays.”
Caledonia will play a quarterfinal game in Williams Arena at the University of Minnesota with a 6 p.m. or 8 p.m. start time on Wednesday. Teams will be seeded and pairings announced.
Sorenson said that defense was at its best near the end of the game and after Dover-Eyota closed to within 54-50 with 3 minutes, 23 seconds remaining. The Warriors scored nine of the final 12 points from there to secure its eight trip to the state tournament and first since 2019.
“We turned up the defense a little more,” Sorenson said of the response to the Eagles tightening up the game. “They missed some shots, and we were able to run them out for a couple of layups.
“We made plays on the defensive end, and that led to some offense.”
Junior Aubrie Klug scored a team-high 22 points for Caledonia, which also received 16 from junior Nicole Banse and 11 from senior Josie Foster.
The victory is Caledonia’s second over Dover-Eyota. The Warriors went on the road and beat the Eagles 74-50 on Jan. 9.
Klug has averaged 23 points of the Warriors’ past four games, and Banse 15.5. Foster has averaged 18.6 over her past five games.
“Our big three scored the majority of our points, but we had some other kids step up huge,” Sorenson said. “We had an eighth-grader and some sophomores do some good things, too.”
