New Life Academy uses its height to soar past Sacred Heart in Minn. Class A tournament

MINNEAPOLIS – Images have been unfold out round New Life Academy’s fitness center at first of part play. They have been pictures from the Eagles’ slim defeat in final yr’s Class A state semifinals, and the painful aftermath.

New Life Academy coach Robbie Whitney was answerable for spreading the pictures round to spots the place gamers would continually see them, nevertheless it was the thought of senior ahead Austin Woolf.

“Some groups you may’t try this, they’re going to consider the destructive half,” Whitney mentioned. “However Austin was like, ‘I believe our guys could be motivated by that.’”

“I used to be simply devastated, so I don’t need that to occur once more and we’re going to make use of that to gasoline us transferring ahead,” Woolf mentioned.

Thus far, the technique has been profitable. With New Life Academy’s 62-46 victory within the state quarters Wednesday over East Grand Forks Sacred Coronary heart at Williams Enviornment, the Eagles are again to the precise stage they reached a yr in the past.

“It’s like our predominant focus,” senior guard Max Briggs mentioned.

The Eagles will meet third-seeded Spring Grove at 12 p.m. Friday at Goal Heart. Sacred Coronary heart, in the meantime, drops into comfort play at midday Thursday at Concordia-St. Paul. The Sacred Coronary heart Eagles will play Mankato Loyola.

Whitney mentioned when his gamers see these images – that are in hard-to-miss spots such because the ball rack on the Woodbury faculty – they’re motivated to work and do “no matter it takes … to guarantee that by no means occurs once more.”

On Wednesday, that meant hitting the glass – it usually does for the second-seeded Eagles. Led by 6-foot-8 ahead Erick Reader – a Gophers’ walk-on commit – New Life Academy is lengthy. That seize paired with a tenacity on the boards was the first cause for the Eagles’ victory. New Life Academy (25-5) out-rebounded Sacred Coronary heart 49-25, gobbling up 22 offensive rebounds that led to 22 second-chance factors.

“We knew we matched up in each aspect of the sport besides that rebounding,” Sacred Coronary heart coach Destry Sterkel mentioned. “We couldn’t allow them to get a bunch of offensive rebounds, and sadly they received 22 of them for the sport. That in all probability led to 22 factors that we wanted to eradicate to have an opportunity tonight, however all in all, fairly happy with (my group). We’re fairly undersized in comparison with them – they’ve received some good measurement – and it simply didn’t go fairly our approach on the glass.”

Second-chance factors are New Life Academy’s bread and butter. Reader leads the cost. On Wednesday, he completed with 14 factors and 12 rebounds, six of which have been offensive.

New Life jumped out to an early 20-3 benefit. Sacred Coronary heart (27-5) responded by scoring the following eight factors. That run was ended, fittingly, by an offensive putback from New Life Academy’s Colter Stone.

“It sort of made us all calm down after that,” Briggs mentioned. “As soon as he received that putback, it like settled my nerves. I simply sort of felt like we’ve got the sport again in our management.”

For Sacred Coronary heart, it was the Eagles second-straight journey to the state match. Sacred Coronary heart’s purpose now could be to seize the comfort title, which it gained final season.

“I’m fairly happy with how we battled the entire sport … it actually simply comes right down to we needed to clear up the defending rebounding,” mentioned Sterkel. “We couldn’t allow them to get a bunch of offensive rebounds, and sadly they received (23) of them for the sport. That in all probability led to twenty, 22 factors that we wanted to eradicate to have an opportunity tonight, however all in all, fairly happy with them. We’re fairly undersized in comparison with them – they’ve received some good measurement – and it simply didn’t go fairly our approach on the glass.

“We knew we matched up in each aspect of the sport besides that rebounding. We had quite a lot of actually good defensive possessions the place we’d get stops and we’d come down and never rating, cease them, come down, not rating, then they’d come down and get a putback. It simply will get a bit demoralizing as the sport goes on and on and on, however they’re group.”