With five state championships and 12 tournament appearances already in her pocket, DeLaSalle coach Faith Johnson Patterson should have had no reason to be self-conscious. Yet she was, worried that her emotional sideline demeanor in the Class 3A semifinals might not have been in her team’s best interest.

“But one of my coaches — I can’t say which one — told me that the team feeds off of my energy,” Johnson Patterson said. “So I decided to be myself. I was going to be tough, I was going to be strong. I was going to lead by example.”

Clearly, the Islanders were paying attention.

After a season that Johnson Patterson characterized as “the most emotional of my career,” DeLaSalle was not fazed by the bright lights or high stakes. They had weathered difficult times, including the loss of Mia Loyd to a severe knee injury and the heart attack of Johnson Patterson’s nephew Jarvis, who is also the brother of leading scorer Tyseanna Johnson.

A state championship game was small potatoes compared to that. This was their time to shine.

DeLaSalle was aggressive from the outset, playing a physical style that confused and frustrated Hill-Murray in a 63-43 victory. Hand checks became nudges, bumps bordered on shoves. Loose balls found DeLaSalle hands.

“We knew we could frustrate them,” senior guard Chanel Dickinson said. “We’ve been physical all season, but we came out with a little more push.”

For Johnson Patterson, the championship was the sixth of her career but her first as the coach of DeLaSalle. She coached Minneapolis North to five state championships between 1998 and 2005. She left North prior to last season to take over at DeLaSalle.

She admitted that the distractions made this season stand out. Dickinson said they made something as simple as a basketball game come easy.

“Coach pushed us because she believed in us,” she said. “We did this for Mia, for Jarvis. It’s the greatest feeling ever.”