Rainy River Men’s Basketball crowned Region XIII Champs!!

This past weekend, March 1st-3rd, both the Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams had competed in the Region XIII (Men’s) and Region XIIIB (Women’s) playoffs respectively. Unfortunately, the Women’s team had lost to the #2 seed Minnesota West, but the Men’s team were able to make it all the way and win it all.

Prior to them making the road trip down to Anoka-Ramsey, we had interviewed Coach Engel who had won the MCAC Coach-of-the-Year award earlier that previous week.

The Men’s team had began the weekend with a win over St Cloud Tech on Friday 62-59. That was then followed by another win on Saturday over Rochester 74-70. Finally, in the Region XIII Championship game against Riverland, and despite being down at halftime 37-46 the Voyageurs would close out their season with a huge 75-73 win to take home the trophy. The team was led by Malik Siggers who scored an overall total of 53 points combined with 26 of those points being scored in the Sunday championship game. Tyrecke Francois finished the weekend with 38 total points, and 17 of those points being scored on Saturday against Rochester. Christian Pujals finished the playoff weekend close behind with a total of 37, his highest scoring game also came against Rochester with 16 points. This berthed their first ever national tournament appearance, and Rainy River’s first appearance in the Region XIII championship since 1991. Coach Bill Engel had the following to say after the big win.

I was also able to interview Coach Koenig alond with Destiny Piekarski prior to them leaving for the Region XIIIB playoffs. Earlier that week Destiny had won the MCAC Player-of-the-Year award.

The Women’s team had taken on #2 Minnesota West where they would fall short 60-84, sadly ending their season. Despite the final score, there were many strong performances by all five starters as the two I Falls/L-BF alumnus both had a double-double with Destiny Piekarski scoring 17 points and 11 rebounds, and Maddie Lowe had 10 points and 10 rebounds. The Polk twins had a good game as Cara had 8 points and 2 rebounds and Cyra had 10 points and also 2 rebounds. Then, Azariah Ellis finished the game with 14 points, 3 rebounds, and led her team with 4 steals.