Down by only two points at halftime to defending Class 4A champion Lakeville North last week, DeLaSalle's girls' basketball team was feeling good despite the day being one of the Islanders' toughest tests on and off the court.

A day earlier, coach Faith Johnson Patterson received news that her 14-year-old nephew Jarvis – brother of DeLaSalle starting sophomore forward Tyseanna Johnson – had collapsed after a heart attack.

And early in the game against the Panthers, starting junior guard Mia Loyd suffered her second serious knee injury in two years.

"The kids had energy and were ready," Johnson Patterson said. "But this was a tough lesson. We're better than that."

The Class 3A Islanders were outscored 37-4 the rest of the way. The team held a lengthy meeting afterward, with players and coaches alike emerging solemnly with puffy eyes and flushed faces.

"This is a really tight team," Johnson Patterson said. "Some things happened that were really personal. A loss is a loss, but this one was definitely tough."

While Lakeville North emptied its bench down to the last player, Johnson Patterson elected to keep her starters in for much of the lopsided contest.

"At that point you teach some lessons," she said. "You can't repeat the same mistakes."

And they sure didn't.

DeLaSalle rebounded in a big way three days later, defeating Minnetonka 75-67 in double overtime.

Johnson, who had the Islanders' only second-half points against Lakeville North, scored 36 against the Skippers in an inspirational effort.

"I was playing for him," she said of her brother, who is breathing on his own and is able to respond to family members. "I thought about him the whole game, and that gave me that extra boost. It's tough, but I know he's a fighter. He's the reason I play. He'll be all right, and so will we."

But the Islanders, who opened the season with four consecutive games against Class 4A teams, will have to play the rest of the way without Loyd.

A speedy guard from Virginia who moved to Minnesota when her father, Curtis, took a job with the Gophers' women's program this summer, Loyd tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee against the Panthers and is scheduled for surgery Dec. 20. She'll then have surgery on her previously injured right knee about two weeks later.

"It stinks that I can't play, but I love being supportive of my teammates," said Loyd, who led DeLaSalle's volleyball team in kills this fall. "I can't be on the court, but I feel 100 percent obligated to be there on the bench. It won't be as much fun, but I know that's my role now and I'm OK with it."

Loyd's injury makes a young DeLaSalle team even younger. But Johnson Patterson is intrigued to see what her team does with yet another challenge.

"For us, there's time for other kids to step up and get better. Regroup," she said. "But there's no time to rest and think about everything going on. We have to function and we have to continue to get better."