PHOTO BY NICK CLARK ** Champlin Park head basketball coach Mark Tuchscherer talked to his team during a timeout during the Class 4A, Section 5 semifinals March 17 at Rogers High School. Cooper beat the Rebels 82-73 that night.
They filled out of the locker room one-by-one, each wearing the same look that formed on their respective faces moments before the end of the first of two Class 4A, Section 5 semifinals March 17 at Rogers High School.
And that look, which could easily be likened to that of someone getting blasted upside the head with a two-by-four, might still be there today.
Heading into the postseason, Champlin Park wasn't much more than an afterthought in a section that included two of the state's five best teams.
Yeah, there was a chance the Rebels would be in the semifinals, but that would be it.
"Your right," said head coach Mark Tuchscherer said. "Outside of our locker room, I don't think anyone really believed in us."
Not anymore.
Champlin Park's season ended that night at Rogers H.S. in the Section 5 semi's, but it did so in a way hardly a soul not associated with the team thought possible.
The fourth-seeded Rebels took top seed Cooper to overtime, and though they did eventually lose 82-73, Champlin Park went down swinging.
"I'd say we played pretty darn hard," Tuchscherer said. "We played smart and very discipline. We kind of took a little of their game and went at them with their own medicine there, and I think it paid off. We just kind of ran out of gas."
No question the tank was full early. The Rebels had Cooper on the ropes from the start. They scored the games first seven points, and would lead by as much as eight points before the night was over. They also only trailed twice in the first half, which included a two-point deficit at the break that lasted all of 27 seconds into the second.
Scott Theisen drilled a three on Champlin Park's first possession of the second to give the Rebels their lead right back, and another Theisen three pushed that lead to four with 13:04 to play.
From there, the Rebels never trailed again in regulation.
But they didn't lead at the end either, as Cooper erased a late five-point deficit, closing out regulation on a 6-1 run, and then carried it over into the extra time, when the Hawks outscored Champlin Park 14-5 to move into the section final.
"Nobody else did, but we knew we could play with them," said Theisen, a senior who hit seven three's and finished with a team-best 25 points in his final high school game.
"Me and a couple teammates got together and watched the tape. We felt like our zones could contain them and they couldn't beat us from the outside, and for the most part it worked. We just made a couple too many turnovers, they got some easy buckets and down the stretch we were a little defensive. They got it done."
Before the opening tip-off, Tuchscherer said the trapping within that zone defense would be the key. The hope was to limit future Gopher Rodney Williams Jr. to as little as possible. That worked, as Williams scored nine points and was virtually invisible the entire night, but it was a pick-your-poison-type scheme, and Joe Bright turned into Champlin Park's killer.
Bright led all scorers with 33 points, most of which came from the paint or at the free throw line.
"Our focus was to stop Rodney and make other people beat us," Theisen said. "Joe Bright did that. He had a lot of easy buckets."
Theisen made a lot of buckets as well, though none of them were easy. He stepped back to knock down at least three of his three's from NBA range, and the rest came with at least one hand in his face, and often times two.
"Unbelievable player," Tuchscherer said. "He said yesterday in practice he was going to shoot a couple NBA three's - that is how much confidence he had - and he hit them."
Theisen said he'd be doing that next year at the college level, it is just a matter of where.
"I'm still undecided," he said. "I have a lot of things to think about and talk to my family about."
Ty Munneke is the only other senior on Champlin Park's roster. He scored just two points in the loss to Cooper, but that wasn't his role.
"He's our defensive stopper," Tuchscherer said. "He had a fantastic game tonight."
So did the rest of the Rebels, who finished the season with a 17-11 overall record, which was the second best in school history.
Junior Kyle Zimmerman dumped in 21 points in the loss to Cooper and will be back next year, when the Rebels hope the roles are reversed.
"We went up against one of the better teams in the state, they had all five starters returning from last year's state tournament team," Tuchscherer said. "I am real proud of our boys. We gave it a great effort and we believed we could win tonight. We came up short, but we'll be back."
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