MINNEAPOLIS — It was begging to be ended with a bang, and Caledonia High School senior Garrett Konz was happy to provide it.
Konz battled foul trouble for most of Tuesday night’s MSHSL Class AA state quarterfinal boys basketball game against Minnehaha Academy, but he stirred up the Warriors contingent with a couple of exclamation-point dunks in the final minute as fourth-seeded Caledonia finished off a 72-56 victory over the fifth-seeded Redhawks at the Williams Arena.
The Warriors (29-2) advanced to the semifinal round in a crazy game that included a 20-point second-half lead shrinking to four before they scored 23 of the final 34 to send Minnehaha Academy (19-10) to the consolation round.
Konz converted a pass from Reid Klug into a dunk and three-point play and slammed down another pass from Grant King on Caledonia’s final two possessions of its 18th straight victory.
“They gave me goosebumps,” Caledonia coach Brad King said of the slams. Reid got one to him for the and-1, and Grant got one to him.
“I think he could have dunked those on an 11-foot hoop.”
The Warriors will play top-seeded Albany (30-0) in a 6 p.m. semifinal at Williams Arena on Friday. Second-seeded Waseca (31-0) meets third-seeded Breck (20-10) in the 8 p.m. semifinal at Williams.
Klug finished with a team-high 23 points and added 11 rebounds and started with two free throws to a key 10-0 Caledonia run after Minnehaha had cut its deficit to 49-45 on a free throw by Adnan Said with 8 minutes, 51 seconds remaining.
“We talk about staying calm and collected during those times,” King said. “They had a guy (senior Fitta Jafar) get hot, and our offense stumbled a little bit there.
“But there was no panic, and we did get a big and-1 from Klug, and Ethan (Stendel) got a couple of big baskets for us.”
Konz scored the last two baskets of that 10-point burst, which also included two big hoops from Stendel. One of Stendel’s baskets came on a putback from one of his 10 rebounds.
Konz closed that run by converting a pass from Grant King — one of his six assists — and gave the Warriors a 59-45 advantage with 5:50 left. Grant King finished with 12 points and Mason King 11 for Caledonia.
The Redhawks never led and survived mostly on the 3-point shooting of Jafar, who made 6 of 12 attempts from the 3-point line and finished with a team-high 21 points. Jafar made four 3s early in the second half, and three of them came during a stretch where Minnehaha Academy cut a 42-22 deficit to 44-38 in less than 5 minutes.
The Redhawks had to play from behind because the Warriors came out and executed upon the opening tip.
Caledonia scored seven of the first eight points and had a 17-4 lead when Klug was fouled and knocked down two free throws with 10:48 left in the first half. The Warriors were forcing turnovers — they had eight steals in the first half — and not only stopping the Redhawks from scoring but converting them to points.
“We had a couple days to prepare and a few games to watch,” said King, whose team helped coax the Redhawks into missing 10 of their first 11 shots. “We had a good understanding of what they wanted to do offensively, and our guys executed to a T what we wanted them to do.”
King said he didn’t anticipate the kind of success the Warriors experienced with turnovers but discussed how hard something like that is to accomplish against a team the quality of Minnehaha, which is making its 10th straight state appearance.
“I knew if we were in gaps and seeing ball, we could do that a few times,” he said. “It’s a bout defensive positioning and giving maximum effort. When you get those steals, you are talking about getting them by 2 inches or 4 inches, so you have to be in good position.”
Konz was on the bench for most of the first half with three fouls and went back there after picking up his fourth just over 2 minutes into the second half. He had his 21 points and five rebounds while playing less than 22 minutes.
“We talked about being smart but still playing hard,” King said. “I told him if he fouled out, he fouled out, but I still wanted him playing hard even with the fouls. He kept playing really hard defense for us and showed a lot of fight with four fouls.”
