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Sports

In a Championship Game, Emotions Run the Gamut

The Hopkins girls basketball title match sees players, parents and fans sweat out the first half, become totally euphoric in the second.

From parents to players to fans to classmates to the team’s bus driver, the emotions at Target Center Saturday night ranged from confidence to nervousness, from concern to—finally—unbridled joy.

The Hopkins girls’ basketball team was taking on rival Eden Prairie for the 2011 state AAAA championship.

Back at the Lindbergh Center at about 5:20 p.m., guard snapped a confident “no” when asked upon entering the building if she was nervous. About 45 minutes later in the corridor her mother, Tara, when asked the same question, had the same answer.

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“It’s not in our blood,” she chuckled.

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Before the Hopkins game, Minneapolis DeLaSalle was playing Hill-Murray for the AAA championship. Jim O’Toole, whose two daughters Shannon and Erin play for the Royals, said during the day, the two seemed “pretty calm.”

Ebony Livingston’s parents, John and Tee, said their senior daughter, who would later be named to the all-tournament team, was “pretty quiet.

“John talked to her about the game this afternoon and she just listened,” her mother said.

Ebony’s aunt, Dorothy Wilson, added, “Tonight Ebony is my favorite niece.”

As the game got underway, Trace “Extra Bacon” Peterson and Steve Gronwall, were confident,—yet vocal—while the Royals and Eagles fought it out.

“Hopkins is so persistent on defense,” observed Gronwall as the Royals began dominating the boards, which would be a major factor in their eventual win.

Gronwall had driven the team bus from Hopkins High to the Target Center—then parked it and walked about four blocks to catch the game. He eventually left within a couple of minutes of the end of the game to fetch his bus and return the victorious Royals to a welcoming party back at the school gym.

At the half, the score was knotted at 22-22 and no one in the building was totally confident in who would emerge as champions—except the .

The Loonies, created at the start of the 2010-2011 basketballs seasons for both the girls and boys teams, are a slightly over-the-top cheering section of boys known for their Loonies blue and white t-shirts and for dressing up in goofy costumes.

One of the founders, senior Mike Moore, said he thought, “we would have pounded them good in the first half.”

Fellow senior Jory Shragg, however, was totally optimistic.

“We are going to trounce them in the second half.”

But just before the second half, Tee Williams said, “Now, I’m nervous.”

As the game stayed fairly close for the first few minutes of the second half, the tension in the Hopkins crowd was evident. However, the Royals' momentum started to slowly, then more quickly, turn Hopkins way. Their speed and defensive tenacity started paying off.

Led by , the Royals built a lead in the mid-teens with about nine minutes left to go and never let Eden Prairie chip away at it.

The final was 67-45.

Prior to the game, the Coffey sisters’ parents, Richard and Sheba, expressed different mindsets when a game with their daughters gets underway.

“I'm always nervous,” said Richard, who starred for the Minnesota Gophers in the 1980s. “When you are playing, the nervousness goes away once the action starts. Not so when you are watching as a parent.”

“I’m too busy cheering to get nervous,” Sheba said.

After the game and the stellar performance by both his children, Richard said, “he was never so proud” of them as he was last night.

Over in their section, the Loonies were whoopin’ it up.

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