Mountain Iron-Buhl Girls Basketball Brings Home First Class A State Title
This victory marks the first time in program history the Rangers girls basketball team became Class A State Champions, making them the second State Champion team to come out of MIB this year after the football team won the 9-man State Championship in December.
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.- For years the Mountain Iron-Buhl girls basketball team has been chasing a state title and on Saturday, from Williams Arena the Rangers made program history, defeating Bold by a score of 52-21.
After 13 trips to the State Tournament, MIB wanted to make sure to set the tone of the game early, coming out strong with an 11 point run in the opening minutes of the game. MIB applied the pressure on both sides of the floor, something head coach Jeff Buffetta says the team has made a focal point all season long.
“If you watch the defensive discipline and intensity and if you have it like that did today, you’re not going to worry about missing shots, you just play defense and create offense out of your defense and I think they were locked down the whole game today. I don’t know how many open looks bold had but if they did, they didn’t feel like they were open because these guys were switching everything, they were in their faces and they were rotating pretty much perfectly on point the whole game so that daily routine that we have, it was just so fun to watch it come together,” says Buffetta.
A big key offensively for the Rangers was taking advantage of second chance opportunities, in part thanks to junior forward, Gabby Lira who finished the day with a double-double (13 rebounds, 10 points).
“I realized they weren’t really covering under the basket as much and they were looking more for the ball up high than down low so I just stayed down low. and I realized that we have our shooters and if we wanted to win we needed someone to get in and get the rebound and get the ball moving,” says Lira.
Halftime didn’t cool down the Rangers one bit, scoring another 11 unanswered points to start the second half, pulling ahead by 28 points.
“We knew early we wanted to control the first five minutes and keep it going, and we figured if we won the first five minutes then we could control the clock after that, and they just executed about as well as you could ask,” says Buffeta.
Finally, after 13 state appearances, the Mountain Iron-Buhl girls basketball team got to raise the Class A State Championship trophy overhead, celebrating years if hard work to get to this point.
“This just isn’t our State Championship it’s all the girls, even the girls that made it to state the very first time, when the youngest girl on our roster was only a month old. We just grew up watching them, we wanted to be the big girls playing in the big games and this championship is for them too, they worked so hard to get here,” says junior guard Jordan Zubich, who finished with a team high 15 points.
“For me obviously it’s been a long run, very proud of the success of our program, very proud of everybody. I just think back over the last 13 years and our 12 trips here off all the assistant coaches we’ve had and all the players that we’ve had that have dedicated all the time and showed these guys about what it’s like to show up everyday and put in the work and it was just awesome to see them finish it off,” says Buffetta.
This victory marks the first time in program history the Rangers girls basketball team became Class A State Champions, making them the second State Champion team to come out of MIB this year after the football team won the 9-man State Championship in December.
