All tournament long you could see something special building, but it came as no surprise to me as the Century Patriots girls and boys basketball teams were on a mission to capture both titles in the North Dakota Class A Basketball Tournament this past weekend in Fargo. The combined record of these two teams is an outstanding 51 wins and 3 losses, with the girls team only losing one game and the boys finishing with a 21 game winning streak.
Head coach Ron Metz’s girls team battled back from being down 39-31 in the second half to beat their cross river rival the Mandan Braves 55-51 for the championship. This wasn’t the first time that Century this season has come back from a second deficit against Mandan. You have to give credit to Coach Metz and his staff for molding this team into a champion that has the ability to come back when down in games.
Darrin Mattern, the boys head coach, had the ability to get his young men to listen to him and and buy into his philosophy of defense-first basketball which they needed to do to stop the high flying West Fargo Sheyenne Mustangs 63-56 in their championship game. Mr. Mattern is a great coach with his passion for the game of basketball, which you can see in his players when they are playing.
Look for these two teams to be back in the state tournament again next year. It would not surprise me to see another Century-Mandan matchup for the state championship in girls next year, as both teams return key players. I feel that the boys team will have a tougher route to defend their championship, but with Coach Mattern in charge, anything is possible as they have played in three out of the last four state championship games.
