By Bill Abeler, Upsala Correspondent
What is one free throw worth? In a basketball game the scoreboard says it counts for a single point.
But when Upsala senior Jacob Voss toed the charity stripe with 2.1 seconds in the Sub-Section West 5A Championship game against top-seed Sebeka and the score deadlocked at 67, there was a lot more on the line than a solitary point.
For Voss and his five senior teammates careers were hanging in the balance. A loss and the glory days of high school basketball were over forever.
Upsala’s Jacob Voss shoots the first of two game winning free throws in the final seconds of the Cardinals 69-67 Sub-Section 5A West Championship Game over Sebeka in Long Prairie, March 15. Photo by Bill Abeler
For Upsala’s talented girls basketball team there was a chance for payback. Just one week earlier on this same floor in Long Prairie the girls from this same Sebeka school upset the number-one seeded Cardinals, abruptly ending the program’s winningest season ever.
For a breathless Upsala fan section jam packed with family, former players, and vocal community members, there was the anxious hope of witnessing the greatest comeback in school history. Down twenty-four after just twelve minutes to the second-ranked team in Class A, many had earlier exchanged any dreams of an upset for at least a more respectable outcome.
Fourteen-point losers in the teams’ first meeting back on December 9, Upsala appeared overmatched in the opening minutes. Flashing their trademark quick pass, fast-break offense and sharp perimeter shooting, the Trojans looked every bit like the team that played into the Class A Championship game last season. Senior guard Cody Pulju, averaging a team-leading 20.8 points per game, was on a roll scoring at will en route to a sixteen-point first half performance.
The Cardinals caught a break before half, however, when a second Trojan picked up a third foul. With two starters on the bench, Sebeka watched Upsala close the gap to fifteen thanks to freshman Christian Pekarek’s twelve points and a pressure defense that turned up the heat.
For Coach Vern Capelle and the Cardinals the first four minutes of the second half had to be a game-changer. “Ahead or behind, one of the characteristics of this team is their no quit resiliency,” Capelle explained. “We believe that the second half is ours.”
It had to be against Eagle Valley in the first round of the playoffs. Down two at the break, Upsala opened with a 26-2 run and never looked back in a 67-44 win at home. In the semi-final matchup in Wadena against rival Browerville, the Cardinals overcame a six point half-time deficit and rallied for a hard-fought 59-55 taming of the Tigers.
But this was Sebeka and the hole was deeper. Ethan Schultz never quit believing. “We got a really good pep talk at half and those early baskets got us going,” said the senior forward, who finished with ten points. “Coming out we wanted to run the ball and shut down Pulju. And we did.”
In the opening two and a half minutes Upsala scored the first eight points. Cutting the margin to seven it was “game on” and the fans could feel it. On the defensive end sophomore Garrett Wolf smothered Pulju and held him scoreless for the rest of the night. Collectively, the defense limited the rattled Trojans to just 21 second half points.
Offensively, Voss accounted for almost half his team’s points. Tallying eighteen in the final eighteen minutes, he finished with a game-high twenty-four.
“He put us on his back and led the way, just like he has all year,” Capelle said. Most of it was accomplished at the free throw line where Voss made eleven of twelve second half shots. He also drained a three-pointer with 3:42 to play tying the score and sending Cardinal fans into a thunderous frenzy. Sebeka answered with a two-pointer but two Voss free throws evened the score at 67 and it stayed there for the final two and half minutes of frantic back-and-forth play.
With just under a minute to play Upsala gained the advantage with a big rebound and skillfully worked the clock down to 9.5 seconds. Off a time out, Schultz inbounded to Voss in the back court and the captain took the ball all the way to the rim. Getting his own rebound he drew a foul and headed to the line for two of the biggest free throw attempts in Upsala history.
“I wasn’t really nervous because I was so into the game,” Voss recalled. And maybe because he practiced for this moment over and over as a boy playing outside on the half-court in his family’s front yard. “This one meant a lot. It was Sebeka.”
The raucous crowd was now quiet, both sides frozen in tension. Never in the lead up to this point, Upsala’s game, season, and dreams were on the line.
Upsala fans storm the court in celebration of Upsala’s 69-67 upset win over Sebeka in the Sub-Section 5A West Championship Game in Long Prairie, March 15. Photo by Bill Abeler
One dribble and…swish… Upsala fans exploded sensing the unthinkable had trumped the impossible. The second shot rolled in and two seconds later Cardinal fans poured onto the court to celebrate the school’s first-ever Sub Section basketball championship.
One free throw just made a season.
