Ninth-grade boys from International Falls will be among the eight teams playing Sunday for a state title in the Pacesetter 2012 Minnesota State Basketball Championship being held at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph.
The Falls freshmen qualified for the single-elimination state tournament after winning the Region 4 qualifier at East Central High School in Finlayson by beating Leech Lake, 41-30, in the championship game on April 14.
Coach Jay Bartkowski said Falls’ team is comprised of players who were part of the Broncos’ ninth-grade squad that went undefeated this past winter, plus Ben Humbert, who started on the varsity team as a freshman.
Falls opens the Pacesetter state tournament at 10:35 a.m. Sunday against Rushford-Peterson, a team the Falls players defeated last year as eighth-graders in the Minnesota Invitational Tournament (MIT) championship.
The winner of the game between the Falls and Rushford-Peterson advances to the semifinals to face the winner between Melrose and Hawley. The losers will play in the consolation bracket.
Falls lost to Hawley, 42-31, in the opening round of last year’s eighth-grade state tournament and also lost last year to Melrose, 37-31, in the tournament’s consolation championship.
“We’re hoping to make a deep run this year, as last year we ran out of gas on Sunday after playing in and winning the MIT on Saturday last year,” Bartkowski said.
The other four teams in this year’s Pacesetter ninth-grade boys state tournament include Mound-Westonka, Barnesville, Holy Family and Crookston.
The two teams that advance to Sunday’s state championship game will be eligible to play June 23 at the Target Center in Minneapolis in the ninth-grade “Great State Championship,” an eight-team tournament with two teams each from Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.
