Jordan Bridges: All-Missota Conference; Most Improved Player
(photos by Jim Lindquist)
The Tiger girls basketball team's favorite subject must be history. It certainly made its share during the 2010-11 season.
Farmington finished the year with school records in consecutive wins (11), victories in a season (23) and for good measure became the first Tiger girls team ever to win a Missota Conference title, sharing the honor with Shakopee and Chanhassen with an 11-3 league record.
The Tigers also earned the program's first No. 1 seed in the Section 1AAAA tournament and for the second time in three years, advanced to the section championship game.
"We had a great year," coach Jason Berg said. "This team will go down as one of the best teams in Farmington girls basketball history.
"The girls really played unselfishly. We had different players step up almost every night and pick each other up. We really had only one game out of 27 where we played poorly. This was a very consistent group."
Defense played a big part in the Tigers success. Farmington finished the regular season allowing just 40.2 points a game, the lowest figure among all Class 4A schools.
Twelve players received varsity letters at the team's post-season banquet held Thursday night: seniors Shelby Calhoun, Jamie Kenealy, Jordan Bridges, Elena Koch, Jess Gaalswyk and Sarah Silber and juniors Isis Alexander, Paige Steele, Desi Loftus, Mariah Mincke, Gabby White and Taylor Meyer.
Elena Koch: (left) All-Missota Conference; Tiger Award
Jamie Kenealy: All-Conference Honorable Mention; Most Vaulable Defensive Player
(photos by Jim Lindquist)
Meyer, who surpassed the 1000 career points mark during the regular season while averaging 14 points and eight rebounds a game, was the team's most valuable offensive player and joined Bridges and Koch on the all-Missota Conference team.
Bridges (11 points, 8 rebounds) was named the Most Improved Player while Koch (8 points, 7 rebounds) won the Tiger Award. Kenealy (6 points, 3 rebounds) received Most Valuable Defensive Player honors.
Berg said that the team's only unfulfilled goal came in not winning the section championship and qualifying for the school's first-ever trip to the state tournament.
"I am prouder of winning the conference championship though," he said.
Berg, who announced after the season that he would not be returning to the Tiger bench next year, offered that with six returning letterwinners and a freshman team that had an outstanding season this winter, the outlook remains bright for Tiger basketball.
"The big thing the players need to work on during the off-season is their offensive skills," he said.
The departing Tiger concluded his evaluation of the championship season with some words of praise for his six graduating seniors,
"They did a great job of leading this team," he said. "They were very unselfish as a group and put winning ahead of everything else.
"This group won a conference championship and played in two section championship games. I'm not sure that any other group of Farmington seniors can say that."
