Glen Strandberg
Sports Editor

The last thing a coach likes to see is their team looking beyond the next game. But since the girls basketball team won its opening round of Section 4AAAA play, and head coach Jen Wagner is on maternity leave, maybe a no harm, no foul rule is in effect.

On Wednesday, Feb. 28, the Rangers started the postseason by hosting North High School, and turned away the Polars, 53-34 in one of their best performances of the season. With a very beatable White Bear Lake waiting on March 6, Wagner’s squad would then have to face Stillwater (5-22) or Roseville (13-13) in the championship game to earn the right to go to state.

So that’s getting ahead of the schedule, but it most certainly can be accomplished. Forest Lake defeated Stillwater and Roseville in their most recent meetings, and only lost by seven points to the Bears on Feb. 20.

“It’s going to be a tough game, but we can beat them,” Andrea Thompson said about White Bear. “We’ve just got to come out and work hard.”

Looking back on the convincing victory over North, all it took was a few minutes of the first half for the Rangers to settle down and show they were the better team.

According to assistant varsity coach Josh Steck, the Polars tried to stop Forest Lake by running a changing zone defense, but swinging the ball around would leave the lane wide open for the Rangers.

Instead, Steck watched his players taking mostly jump shots, even though seven of their first eight baskets came in the paint.

Despite building a lead as big as 14-3, and going into intermission with a seven-point advantage, Forest Lake was 8-25 from the field; Steck knew the original game plan would make a difference.

“We made that adjustment after halftime, and you know, they did it — executed it and we get a 19-point win.”

Another adjustment that paid off in the second half were the efforts of Danielle Boldenow.

With the game still close at 29-21 in favor of the Rangers, Boldenow made a lay-up, was fouled and converted the free throw. Shortly afterward she stole the ball and fed Andrea Thompson for an easy two and the score was quickly 37-24. North would call a time-out, but that wouldn’t slow Forest Lake’s roll.

“She’s definitely a game-changer,” Steck said of Boldenow. “With her speed, and her athleticism and her quickness, she’s able to get hands on balls that normally wouldn’t be able to get picked off by somebody else.”

Boldenow would finish the game with nine points, while Thompson would lead the team with 15 and Gina Lange had 11 points.

“We all came out and worked hard and put it all on the floor,” Thompson said about the final home game of her Forest Lake career. “Seniors went out with a good note.”

The Polars had a difficult time handling Anne Berner in the first half as she would go on to collect eight points in the game, and Kelsey Kosman finished with six.

“Kelsey, defensively, really stepped up tonight as well,” Steck said. “It was a great team effort to shut down both (Danielle) Daniels and (Carolyn) Mobley, so, it was good,” Steck said.

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