White Bear Lake Physical in Victory Over STMA

MINNEAPOLIS,Minn—The White Bear Lake Bears play about as physical on the defensive end of the basketball floor as you can legally get. They constantly are diving for loose balls on the floor and play an in-your-face style of defense better than any team in the tournament. They used that physicality to get by the STMA Knights 64-51 Wednesday afternoon.

“It’s just our style, we play really aggressive defense,” said Bears head coach Jeremy Post. “We preach defense, defense, defense. Everything else you can’t rely on.”

The Bears scored 16 points off turnovers in the first half and outscored the Knights 34-12 in the post. Julia Dysthe and Alexis Foley led the way for White Bear Lake with 16 points each.

The Bears started fast jumping out to a 10-2 lead. They held the lead for the entire first half and stretched it to its biggest lead at 26-16 with 2:39 to play in the half.

They stretched the lead to 18 on a Rochelle Regnier jumper at the 9:33 mark of the second. The team learned from their state trip a season ago in which they lost in the quarterfinal loss to Eastview.

“We lost last year and that was very disappointing,” said Dysthe. “We wanted to get back here, and that was our goal all year.”

They are here and have advanced to the semi-finals. They will take on Wayzata in the semi-finals tomorrow night at 8pm.