The Hastings girls basketball team is ready for the second season.
Hastings was scheduled to open up Section 3AAAA play Wednesday, Feb. 28 at 7 p.m. at Burnsville. Hastings coach Rick Tavernier expects the game to be a close battle, much like when they played the second game of the season, when Burnsville won by one point.
The winner of that game plays at Rosemount Saturday at 2 p.m.
On the other side of the section bracket are Eastview hosting Bloomington Jefferson and Eagan hosting Park. The section championship game is March 7 at 7 p.m.
“We’re excited. The game at Burnsville, it’s sure to be kind of an intense atmosphere. It was the first time around, and that was only the second game of the season. We know that there’s going to be a playoff vibe. The first time, we took a one-point loss on a last second shot, so I would imagine it’s going to be similar. It’s going to be a close game. We’re ready to go. We’ve got a couple of days of practice under our belt to kind of fine tune things,” said Tavernier.
Hastings dropped its final game of the season at home against Hill-Murray Friday night that put the two teams in a tie for second place in the final Metro East standings with 11-3 league records. Mahtomedi won the conference with a perfect 14-0 mark. The Raiders played several tough non-conference opponents and section foes to prepare for the post-season.
“We played some tough non-conference games. You hope that those games and playing at that caliber of opponents prepares you for the playoffs,” said Tavernier. “You have to do things along the way, try to connect dots. Hopefully kids improve and the team improves throughout the conference schedule and then show up and battle it out.”
In his first year as Hastings coach, this year’s team has impressed Tavernier.
“We knew we were going to have a good squad. We were returning almost everybody from the JV and varsity roster. We only graduated one, so we knew the core was going to be there with another year under their best,” he said. “Obviously the transition to a different head coach always is a wrinkle, just getting used to people’s personalities, the way I do things, the way they’re used to doing things. We knew we were going to be good. We knew we had a chance in our conference to be toward the top. We ended up splitting with Hill-Murray and Mahtomedi is hard to slow down, but the coaching staff and I think I can speak for the team, we’re pretty proud of how we played all year. The trajectory of the team is one the rise, which is good.”
All in all, it’s been a great experience so far this season, and the Raiders hope to keep it going.
“We have some great personalities on the team, good teammates, high character individuals. Just seeing the dynamic of the personalities and the student athletes play out from a coaching perspective was fun. Being there in practice every day was a positive from the competitive athletic side of it. It’s fun to watch players grow. There are multiple players that have had two, three or even more years of varsity experience and to continue to see them gel, play together, people stepping up taking on roles that they don’t normally play for the team is always great and fund to see,” said Tavernier.
In the Hill-Murray season finale, the Raiders fell 53-43.
Keagan McVicker scored 12 points, while Haley Strain scored 11 and Emma Bakker had nine. Sophia Swanson added six points on a pair of three pointers, and Lindsey Wagner scored five points.
Metro East Conference
Final Standings
Team Conf. Overall
Mahtomedi 14-0 18-8
Hastings 11-3 18-8
Hill-Murray 11-3 16-10
South St. Paul 7-7 11-15
Two Rivers 6-8 14-12
North St. Paul 3-11 5-18
Simley 2-12 8-17
Tartan 2-12 4-21
