It wasn't supposed to end this way.
Last season the Barnum Bombers crushed Sebeka 82-37 in the Section 5A girls basketball championship game on the way to winning the Class A state tournament. Friday night, though, the tables were turned.
The Trojans shocked the Bombers 78-70 in overtime in Crosby, and advanced to that school's first-ever state tournament. They also left a talented Barnum team to lament what had gone wrong.
"We were the better team," Barnum coach Randy Myhre said. "Definitely, we were the better team. But I believe things happen for a reason. Right now I don't know what that reason is, but we just didn't get the job done."
Sebeka led 32-30 at halftime, but the Bombers tied the game at 68-68 late in regulation and had a chance to win.
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"We controlled the last minute and could have won it then," Myhre said, "but we had things go wrong in that game that haven't gone wrong all season. We had an open player under the basket ready to shoot, and the pass was going to her but another of our players tipped the pass past her. That was just one thing."
Myhre credited the presence of transfer Alicia Boe as the main reason the Trojans were so improved from last season to this one.
"They picked up a transfer player from New York Mills, and she's one of the best players in that section," Myhre said. "She made a big difference." Boe scored 14 points for the Trojans.
The game brought an end to the remarkable prep career of Jessica Newman, who scored 42 of Barnum's 70 points on the night.
"Jess tried to will her team to a victory," Myhre said. "Her effort was unbelievable. I think it might have been one of the best individual efforts I've ever seen at Barnum. Her heart was in it, and it was just one of the best performances in our history. But, she needed some help and it wasn't meant to be."
The antiseptic defense that heralded Barnum's semifinal win over Isle wasn't there against Sebeka.
"We didn't play defense the way we are capable," Myhre said. "We had a number of turnovers and missed assignments, and in spite of all that we were in control in the last minute."
Claudia Turner added 13 points for the Bombers, while Jessica Lilliquist led Sebeka with 24.
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Now, though, the Bombers are left to pick up the pieces from a season that ended one game short of state.
"Our kids put in a lot of time and we had a very good season," Myhre said. "It didn't finish the way that we wanted it to, but I'm real proud of our kids. We are better than what we showed, but we lacked determination in the defensive part of the game at times. I feel bad that I didn't do more to motivate those kids to play better defense."
However, the cupboard is far from bare in Barnum, which graduates only one senior - granted, it's the irreplaceable Newman, who is headed to UMD next season - but the rest of the team will be back next year.
"You're losing more than one player in Jess," Myhre said. "She can take over a game. We don't have players like her coming back. We'll have to do it as a team next year. She almost singlehandedly won that section final offensively. She has been a great player and a great competitor."
"The underclassmen have to figure it out," Myhre said. "We have to do more, we have to do better. Whether [the players] put in the time or not is up to them."
In the end, though, Myhre is philosophical.
"Life is full of disappointments, and this is one," he said. "This is a major disappointment. We have to see how the kids respond. It will tell a lot about them and hopefully it will help make them better people for the future too. That is what life is about.
"We just couldn't get it right," Myhre added. "It was our destiny not to win that game."
