When we came back for that pep assembly (Sunday), I think Rae Lin had her picture taken with about 20 kids who were between third and eighth grade. They fell in love with her and they idolized her.
She's played against bigger kids all her life, 5-8 and 5-9 players. She's so physically strong and has such great instincts that 5-3 doesn't matter. Rae Lin has no fear, knows how to play the game and use her body.
She's a calming influence at times, she's a source of energy at other times.
Megan Chart shadowed Higgins the whole game. She's their leading scorer and except for the third quarter, when nobody played defense, Megan kept her down.
I wouldn't consider it our best offensive movement of the ball, but we did a nice job. Tiffany was feeling it. She was nice and smooth and once it left her hands, you knew it was going in.
I think she fell in love with her (Thursday).
We played real well in the fourth quarter. Our deep athleticism paid off and we pretty much ran them out of the game.
We could have landed a knockout punch right then and there. But they went on a run and they kept it pretty close the rest of the game.
We came out ice cold, it was our worst first quarter in a while. We were down 19-9 (early in the second quarter). Our man-to-man defense wasn't working.
You know, her freshman year she was such a tomboy. She wore boys' clothes and she also played like a boy ever since I knew her. Now she's wearing skirts and scarves, but she still plays 100 percent like a boy.
We played well in the first half and maybe thought we had the game in hand. But we didn't play defense coming out of the locker room in the second half. We allowed people to cut inside and go right to the basket.
We probably had 20 or 25 third- to eighth-graders just wanting a picture taken with her when we got back to the pep assembly (on Sunday). What this is going to do for my program the next few years ...
We're not even close to being in that game without her.
We actually thrive off some pressure . . . because we feel we can get the ball into Rae Lin and others. And once we get past that first wave, we just do a fantastic job of running our lanes and, for the most part, finishing.
This was a perfect game heading into the tournament. Union Grove came out to play and we needed to struggle and show that we could come back in the fourth quarter. We played a fantastic fourth quarter.
I've only seen her with her hair down once - at our banquet. Otherwise, her hair's back. She walked into our banquet and I was like, 'Who are you?' She's just a basketball junkie.
That's when we were able to extend the lead.
This game was a roller-coaster ride and it just happened we were on top at the end.
It's a team with tradition. And if anybody's going to have a team prepared for that atmosphere, it's him.
It was from that moment on when they realized how good they could be.
The key will be our composure and execution. We'll be one of the better ball-handling teams (Mukwonago) will face all year.
