CALEDONIA — Caledonia High School senior Josie Foster remembers watching the Warriors play in the MSHSL Class AA state girls basketball tournament six years ago.
Junior Aubrie Klug was there at Williams Arena on the University of Minnesota campus, too.
The excitement was instantly something the two 1,000-point scorers wanted to experience as players, and they get that chance Wednesday night after winning the Section 1AA championship last weekend.
“I was watching them play, and I was like, ‘I wanna do that,'” Foster said with a smile. “I want to be here and play in games like this. It’s cool that we get to.”
Foster, a 5-foot-10 guard who will continue her basketball career at Upper Iowa University, is a big reason for the opportunity. So is Klug, a 5-9 guard who has averaged 23 points over the past four games.
“I think it’s gonna be really fun and a really good experience for all of us,” Klug said. “It’s going to be great to go up there and play some competitive teams.”
The Warriors (27-3) were awarded the sixth seed and square off with third-seeded Minnehaha Academy (20-9) — the team that denied Caledonia the state title back in 2019 — in an 8 p.m. quarterfinal at Maturi Pavilion. The winner moves on to an 8 p.m. semifinal at Williams Arena on Friday.
The game is the reward for an amazingly consistent and successful season for a team that might be led by Foster and Klug but has proven to be so much more while winning conference and section championships.
What that group of players will be focused on more than anything else when matching up with the Redhawks is senior guard Addi Mack, who averages 34.5 points per game and has scored more than 4,500 in her career. She has committed to play at the University of Maryland and scored at least 40 points in three of her past six games.
“She can score at all levels,” Caledonia coach Scott Sorenson said of Mack. “So that’s the focus of most people, but they have four other kids who can get to the rim, and they can really spread you out.”
The Redhawks also have double-figure scorers in 5-10 junior Sinae Hill (13.7 ppg) and 5-8 senior guard Amina Allen (12.7 ppg).
While Klug averages around 20 points per game and Foster 15 or 16 for the Warriors, junior Nicole Banse has picked up her offensive output toward the end of the season and has averaged 16.8 points over her last five games.
Klug scored 22, Banse 16 and Foster 11 when Caledonia beat Dover-Eyota 63-53 in the section final and reached a new level of recent success after having seasons ended in the section semifinals last year and section finals the year before.
“I feel like relief was the first thing that came into my mind,” Foster said. “It was a tough game, and when that buzzer went off, I definitely felt relieved that the whole (qualifying process) was coming to a close.
“It was such a good feeling.”
That’s because the Warriors pumped themselves with reassurance and confidence throughout the season. Sure, there were a few losses along the way, but Caledonia gave itself plenty of reasons to envision itself playing in this tournament.
An emphatic 67-48 win over a Rochester Lourdes team that would eventually win 18 games started the season, and three wins over Winona Cotter — also an 18-game winner — to go with two over Dover-Eyota (22-8) and another over West Salem (22-5) followed it.
The Warriors see that as good preparation for what awaits with a gauntlet of good opponents for whichever team emerges with the title.
“We feel like we match up well with them,” Sorenson said of the Redhawks. “But we also feel like we are going to have to play at our best (to win).”
