On Tuesday, Holy Family girls basketball took on Providence Academy for the right to advance to the section 5AA finals.  The Fire defeated Providence Academy by a score of 53-44, making it the fourth consecutive year in a row that the Fire have advanced to the section finals.  The Fire were section champions in 2016, but lost to Watertown-Mayer in the finals in 2017 and Maranatha Christian in 2018.  The Fire will look to avenge their section championship losses the past two years and relish the opportunity to do so.

The Fire are experienced and have tremendous depth.  The Fire have eight players who have been to the section championship the past two years and two of those players were key contributors to the Fire when they competed at state in 2016.  Senior Grace Murphy is excited to be able to play in the section championship once again stating, “Heading into the section championship, I am so excited!  We have been waiting for this opportunity for so long after falling short the past two years, this is bound to be our year.  Obviously, there are nerves, but I have confidence in my team to get the win and play our hearts out.”

The Fire, who are ranked fifth in class 2A, are now 22-5 on the season and are 14-0 against Class 2A schools.  Their losses have come against four 3A schools, most notably number 3 ranked DeLaSalle and number 4 ranked Hill-Murray, and one 4A school. Three of the Fire’s losses have come at the buzzer.  Senior Anna Vakulskas believes the Fire will benefit from playing bigger schools stating, “Playing bigger schools showed us what we needed to work on in order to prepare for a game like this.”

Annandale, who was seeded second, defeated Maranatha Christian by a score of 69-65 to move on to the section finals.  The Cardinals are now 22-6 on the year.  The Fire defeated Annandale on the road earlier in the year, winning by a score of 59-52.  Without a doubt, this matchup will be a battle to the end, especially with state being on the line.  Junior Grace Elander has confidence in the Fire’s ability to win nonetheless stating, “I think showing up with everything we have is so important in this game… If we go in, box out, play our D, and move the ball, this game is in our hands.  We just got to bring what we got and fight until the end.”

The Fire will face Annandale in the Section 5AA championship on Friday, March 8 at St. Cloud State University.