First Trip to State | Video

Scott Westerburg | 3/19/2013

For the first time in school history the Grant County girls are headed to the state basketball tournament. The Coyotes won the Region Five championship last Thursday in overtime against Shiloh Christian. That was Grant County`s third straight trip to the region title game, and after two years of heartbreak, the towns of Carson, New Leipzig and Elgin are finally celebrating a trip to the girls "B".

"Honestly it was kind of unbelievable. We got all excited and our crown ran down there and I turned around and had to look at the scoreboard to finally believe that wow, we did this after all the hard work we put into it," said junior Ashley Werner.

"I`m hoping a lot of people come out and support and it will be fun. The community, how much support they`ve shown even just Thursday night coming home with the parade, everything, it was crazy," said senior Ashley Bentz.

Even though the Coyotes are averaging over 60 points per game, it wasn`t their offense that carried them through the region tournament.

"Defense was definitely key. When we play defense really well it feeds on our offense and we played amazing defense throughout the tournament and we played aggressive defense and physical defense. We weren`t so standoffish and really we just gave it our all," said senior Elesha Tatro.

"Our running game is one of our biggest things we like to do and our defense the last couple games, the regional championship our defense really stepped up and that`s a big thing for us is to get our defense on," said sophomore Sydney Bentz.

Grant County`s opponent on Thursday is Central Cass. This will be the first meeting between these two teams this season.

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