MVL girls

dealing

with glare

of tourney

NEW ULM -- Minnesota Valley Lutheran girls basketball coach John Barenz said Wednesday he " is a little overwhelmed" with all the attention he and his team has received since defeating Kenyon-Wanamingo 42-37 in overtime to advance to Williams Arena in Minneapolis for a 1 p.m. Friday meeting with Ogilvie.

The Chargers, now 22-5 on the season, have advanced farther than any other girls team at MVL. In 1994, the Chargers lost their first-round game in the state tournament.

Now, MVL finds themselves in the Final Four of the Class 1A tournament.

"I am happy with the attention that the school has received in a very positive way," he said. "We are looking forward to the games Friday and Saturday to not only represent our school but also our conference and section at state."

In his fourth season as the Chargers' coach, Barenz said at the start of the season he and assistant coach Andy Neuman "often thought about winning a trip to the state tournament. You often think about that. And I think that in the back of the kids' minds and I suspect mine, we did consider that. But we did not really talk about that. We set our sights on the (Tomahawk Conference) title and working hard towards that.

"As the subsection came along, we just adjusted a little bit and looked towards that as well as the section. Winning a trip to the state was always a hope but, to be honest, was not a goal. Our goals were much different than that."

Barenz said this year's team has been a mix of seniors (two) juniors (eight) sophomores (four) and a freshman into a strong team with good chemistry.

"It was something that we worked on actively," he said. "We wanted good chemistry. Girls teams are different than guys teams in that they are more relationship-oriented. So we made time for the girls to get together and the parents have helped a lot with that in that they have opened their homes prior to games and the players have gotten together for pregame meals. There are a number little different activities that I give them to do. Before Christmas, we had a number of activities as well as after Christmas."

He said with all of that combined plus the winning has created "good chemistry."

WINNING IN CLASSROOM AS WELL AS COURT: It is needless to say that good classroom habits carry over to the basketball court and this year's MVL team is no exception. At MVL, an academically strong school, the team has a combined GPA of 3.46.

"Out of the 12 girls on the team, 10 are on the honor roll." commented Barenz. "That classroom excellence carries over to the basketball court in leadership. I have often felt that the kind of work ethic that it takes to get As and Bs in the classroom is the same work ethic that translates to the basketball floor.If they work well in the classroom, they show that same work ethic in sports."

MORGAN MAKES ADJUSTMENT WELL: When the word came down last year that Bethany Bauer, the Chargers' starting point guard, was leaving for Lake Mills, Wis., Barenz turned his attention to would-be sophomore Leah Morgan to take over the position. Point guard is a position of leadership, a position that has to be held by a person who is a second coach on the floor. Many a good team has failed to reach a state tournament because of the lack of a quality point guard.

"Leah was reluctant to make the change early on," Barenz said. "The point guard position carries a lot more responsibility in terms of decision-making on the court. She has made her mistakes early in the season. But now, to her credit, she has learned from those mistakes and her leadership showed in the Kenyon game.

"She had a mastery over so many aspects of that game. She is a very focused player, but she is also comfortable. She was a very important part of our gameplan (Tuesday) both in offense and defense. On offense,we wanted her to make the decision on whether to hurry the ball up the floor or bring it up under control. She carried that part of it out very well. On defense, she was the one who was going to get back early to prevent them from making lay-ups. We got back well and she led that."

"At the beginning of the year,I was not to comfortable with it," said Morgan. "But as the season went on, it got better."

Morgan said that the toughest adjustment she had to make was "having to dribble a lot more. I had not played point guard since fifth grade and then I had to play it again."

Morgan said she received "a lot of encouragement from my coaches and teammates. I had to work on dribbling more with my right hand and have better control of the ball."

Plus, she has excelled at seeing the entire floor.

"When we break, I try to see the floor. I look for Erin (Czer) and try to give it to her, but I will not force the ball if I question it. I will slow the offense up."

She said she and the entire team are "really excited about playing at Williams Arena. We know that we have to practice hard and play together and know that we can win it all."

CZER MAKES BIG PLAYS: If you want to find Czer on the basketball court, you only have to find the ball. The junior is usually around it.

Tuesday night, she again made a big defensive play in the win, just as she did late in the game against Cedar Mountain.

"I take pride in my defense and Mr. Barenz always puts me on the other team's best player," she said. "When our defense is good, than our offense is also good."

Czer said this year's team carried the memory of last year's loss to Cedar Mountain in the subsection into this season.

"Three of us (Czer, Sarah Gronholz and Heidi Madson) have been playing on the varsity for three years now. We had that memory of that los. We knew this year, we knew that we had to get further. We took it one game at a time. It is a nice feeling to get this far."

Czer commented that "everyone is behind us -- our school, the community. We have gotten a lot of phone calls from everyone wishing us well. Everyone wants to see us take it all the way."

Even though MVL is a young team with 13 players returning of the 15 on the roster, Czer knows that things can happen.

"Red Rock Central lost (in the sectionals) this year. There are a lot of good teams coming up in our conference."

WON TITLE AT ST. PAUL'S: Four members of the MVL team -- Rebekah Olson, Czer, Morgan and Gronholz -- were members of the St. Paul's Lutheran grade school team that won the State Lutheran Grade School Invitational Basketball Tournament as seventh- and eighth-graders.

They went 12-0 that year and in two years compiled a 46-2 record.

BARENZ HAS DECISION TO MAKE: Barenz will be making a decision in the next two weeks on whether he will return to MVL next year or accept a call that would take him out of Minnesota.

"I have received a call to start a Lutheran high school in Denver, so I have to consider that," he said. "That is a big decision for me and my family to decide where we will be."

Barenz would develop the school and then serve as it's principal.

"They need to know within two weeks." he said.

Barenz is originally from Montana, but prior to coming to MVL he had served 12 years as an elementary principal in Denver.

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