Holy Angels win it with free throws
Defense wins championships, and that’s what Winona Senior High School’s girls basketball team was about Saturday.
It was the offense, however, that couldn’t maintain.
Playing in its first-ever state championship, the No. 2-seeded Winhawks fell to the fifth-seeded Academy of Holy Angels 51-43 Saturday at Williams Arena.
Neither team shot particularly well and the one big discrepancy in the boxscore was fouls, which led to an astounding amount of free throws for Holy Angels (25-7).
Winona (25-5) committed 17 fouls and shot just 2-for-4 from the free-throw line. Holy Angels committed just five fouls and went 20-for-26 from the line.
Defensively, Winona held its opponent to just 29-percent shooting (15-for-51) and forced 15 turnovers, but the offense couldn’t keep pace.
The Winhawks had 19 turnovers and shot 17-for-48 from the field (35.4%) and 7-for-22 from beyond the arc (31.8%).
A 22-18 Holy Angels halftime lead was pushed to 29-20 minutes into the second. The closest Winona got after that was 37-30 after a Hallee Hoeppner 3-pointer with 10:20 remaining.
A 9-2 run Holy Angels ensued and Winona never got it back to single-digits, until a 3-pointer in the final 8 seconds.