Photo Gallery: Austin vs Farmington
"Our time" is emblazoned in capital red letters on Austin’s warm-up shirts.
The rallying cry is short and sweet.
With oodles of experience returning for a Class 3A state quarterfinal team two of the past three seasons, the Packers believe they’ve got a golden opportunity for more.
What better way to get battle-tested for the postseason than to bump up a weight class for a holiday season nonconference showdown.
Farmington thought it was time for an upset, but a veteran Austin team came back from a halftime deficit to win on the road, 64-53, Thursday.
"'Our time’ means a lot to us because it’s our time to shine,” said junior wing Cassidy Shute, who scored 15 of her co-game high 18 points in the second half. “We’ve made state a lot of times, and this is our time to go get the state championship. That’s our goal with playing hard in all these games. It’s not about winning all these games, but it’s a really big accomplishment, too. We’ve just got to exert all our energy because everyone wants to beat us and we want to beat everyone else, too.”
Farmington enjoyed its program’s golden age the last three seasons. Eight seniors from 2020-21, led by current collegians Sophie Hart (North Carolina State), Paige Kindseth (Presbyterian) and Peyton Blandin (Southwest Minnesota State), guided the Tigers to a 74-8 combined record and the school’s first state tournament appearances in 2020 and 2021.
Senior wing Rose Wille is the leading returner whose seen her scoring output nearly double to over 13 points per game. Farmington coach Liz Carpentier praised Wille for making the transition from fourth option and a relative young gun on the team to a wily veteran ready that's atop the opponent's scouting report.
"She brings a lot of energy," Carpentier said. "She makes plays on both ends of the floor that our younger kids are struggling to make. She gets rebounds, she’s first to the loose basketball, she’s going to face a lot of double teams, and we’ve talked about that, too."
Wille sunk two of the Tigers’ seven first-half 3-pointers that gave them a 36-33 halftime lead. They looked like a new team after suffering a 78-50 loss to Maple Grove two nights prior.
The Crimson were the fourth top-20 state ranked opponent the Tigers (3-8) have met this season based on the Dec. 29 Minnesota Basketball News rankings. The Packers (8-0) were the fifth and are No. 2 in Class 3A.
“I think that I bring leadership trying to bring in these new girls, especially the freshmen and 10th graders,” Wille, who led the team with 12 points, said. “We have a junior who’s never played in our program. They’re learning our philosophy and trying to get it right away instead of playing a couple games and then understanding what we do.”
Neither team built a comfortable lead in the first half. Farmington showed marksmanship from deep, and when Wille wasn’t connecting from beyond the arc, she was passing out of double teams in the paint out to open shooters.
“We fixed a few things at halftime, defensively, and threw three different looks at them in the second half,” Austin coach Eric Zoske said of various man-to-man and zone looks, as well as some traps. “We just wanted to keep them off guard and keep them on their toes. They had too much momentum in the first half.”
Shute told Zoske she could handle the assignment of Wille alone in the second half. Her assertiveness allowed Austin’s talented senior backcourt of twins Hope and Emma Dudycha and junior Olivia Walsh to focus on guarding the 3-point stripe.
Wille still finished with 12 points but had to work for each of them. Senior guard Grace Schaffer added 11 points for the Tigers.
Austin opened the second half on a 9-3 run. The Packers improved from one made 3-pointer in the first half to four in the second, three coming from the hand of Shute.
That opened up the paint for senior center Reana Schmitt. She was one of several Packers who navigated well in the paint on post moves or drives to the basket, joining Shute with 18 points.
Schmitt's screens played a part in Austin continuously getting to the basket on pick-and-rolls.
Walsh had 14 points and Hope Dudycha 12.
"I want to shout out Liv for having a big game tonight," Shute said. "She kept taking it to the rim and had big rebounds. Also Reana had a lot of big rebounds and stepped up to the plate driving it on the girls."
Zoske said his entire starting lineup has designs of playing college ball. His three seniors have received offers and are weighing their decisions.
For now, they’re having a lot of fun playing with each other and knocking off metro suburban powers along the way. Thursday was the two schools' first matchup in over a decade, if not the first ever.
"This is a school with a rich tradition. It’s a tradition of tough," Zoske said of the opposition. "We’re well aware of their success. Any time you beat the name Farmington, that’s a big deal to us."