Aquinas holds off Mineral Point, heads to 1st state championship since 2013

Last year, they watched a 3-pointer at the buzzer end the season.

This time around, it was almost Déjà vu between the Aquinas High School boys basketball team and Mineral Point in the Division 4 state semifinals.

Mineral Point launched another 3-pointer at the buzzer. This one, though, was to send things into overtime, and this one didn’t go in.

The Blugolds came back from 14 points down to win 57-54 and head to their first state championship since 2013 — when Bronson Koenig scored 16 points in a 53-48 state title win over Lodi.

In last year’s quarterfinals, Mineral Point scored eight points in the final 19.1 seconds, including the winning 3-pointer with .5 seconds remaining to end Aquinas’ season with a one-point loss.

Saturday, Aquinas (25-3) will face Bonduel (28-1) around 12:30 p.m. at the Kohl Center.

To get there, the Blugolds had to fight their way back from down 14 with 6:15 remaining in the first half.

They cut that to 31-29 less than two minutes into the second, but couldn’t get over the hump. Aquinas didn’t take their first lead since it was 8-7 until Finley Strom nailed a 3-pointer with 1:55 to go. The Blugolds never relinquished the lead after that, but it was a nailbiter until the very end.

Strom led Aquinas with 16 points on 4-for-9 shooting, including 3 of 6 from deep. He added six rebounds, two blocks and an assist, plus three turnovers.

The Blugolds finished with 16 turnovers to Mineral Point’s six. They made up for that, holding MP to just 36.2% shooting.

Vincent Bahr had 15 points, 10 rebounds, three assists, a steal and four turnovers for the Blugolds, who shot 43.9% from the field. Bahr, though, went 5 of 8 shooting, including a ridiculous 4-for-6 from downtown.