By Jim Rueda
Free Press Sports Editor
ST PETER — Ask St. Peter girls basketball coach Cyndi Raymond if she’s surprised to find her team in today’s Class AA state tournament and you’re not likely to get a definitive answer. The best she’ll probably give you is a ‘yes and no.’
Raymond took over the St. Peter program two years ago after the Saints had gone almost a decade’s worth of seasons where they won only three, four or five games. None of the players she coached on the first day of practice in 2008 had ever played man-to-man defense.
“They had just sat in a zone the whole time and the coach would send in one play on offense,” Raymond said. “We had to start from Square 1. Considering where we were two years ago, yes, going to state is surprising.”
Raymond coached the team to 11 wins her first season but said she could tell by the end of last winter that the Saints had tremendous potential. They had learned to play man-to-man well and the young players were improving significantly with each game.
“You could see it was starting to come together the last few weeks,” Raymond said. “The girls went out and played a lot of AAU basketball over the summer, winning the tournament at the MSU camp and doing well at the South Dakota camp, too.
“That gave us a lot of confidence. Coming into this year I knew we would be pretty competitive.”
Senior Jenny Wilking agreed. She had experienced some of those three and four-win seasons but could tell by the end of last year that things were turning around quickly.
“After this summer we knew we would be a good basketball team,” Wilking said. “You could just see it every day in practice.”
Raymond believes the Saints may have even been a little too confident going into this season.
“We came out in the second game and got beat (83-78) by New Ulm,” she said. “That brought us back to earth a little bit. We realized we couldn’t just show up and expect to win.”
St. Peter continued to struggle in the early going, compiling a 4-4 record by Jan. 12 before taking off. The Saints put together a 17-2 run to close out the season, including a 63-23 pounding of eighth-ranked Jordan and a 53-52 overtime win against Blue Earth Area for the Section 2AA championship.
Junior AnnMarie Brown said the difference between this year and last year can be summed up in one word — experience.
“We were all pretty young last year but we learned a lot,” she said. “Now we’re a year older, we’ve played together awhile, we’re finding different ways to win.”
Raymond said a lot of things have fallen into place for St. Peter. Junior Dani Larson has become a defensive stalwart and freshman Tailor Raymond, Cyndi’s daughter, has been a consistent contributor, averaging 11.7 points and 5.9 rebounds per game.
Junior AnnMarie Brown is the team’s top player, averaging 18.6 points and 7.4 rebounds. Sophomore Katy Kuiper is averaging 13.8 points, junior Alissa Lager averages 6.1 rebounds and sophomore Sidney Dirks averages 7.1 points and 5.8 rebounds.
If the season had a turning point, it probably came when Brown had to miss three games midway through the season with an ankle injury. Kuiper took over the bulk of the scoring during her absence and the Saints won all three games.
“(At that point) the players realized they don’t need AnnMarie to score 30 points a game for us to win,” coach Raymond said. “Other players could step up and contribute and we could still be successful.”
The Saints (21-6) take on Rochester Lourdes in Class AA’s opening round at 7 p.m. today at Target Center in Minneapolis.
