Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall guard Bri Simpson blows by a DeLaSalle defender in the Minnesota Class AAA fifth-place game at the Gangelhoff Center in St. Paul on March 17. Simpson is the Independent’s 2023 girls basketball Player of the Year.

As time ticked off the clock in the final seconds of regulation in the Marshall girls basketball team’s game against St. Peter on Feb. 3, Bri Simpson found a way to cut through the Saints’ defense and knock down a contested floater to tie the game as time expired. The score remained tied at the end of the first overtime, and as the seconds waned in double overtime, Simpson came up big with a deep 3-pointer to tie the game again as time expired.

The Tigers went on to lose the game in triple overtime, but Simpson’s ability to step up and knock down shots when the pressure is on is a big part of why she is the Independent’s girls basketball Player of the Year.

“It’s about trying to get the ball in the best position to score but also score at the right time,” Simpson said of her strategy in clutch moments. “A lot of the time, we would always wait, run down the clock as long as we could to get off a good shot and have that time to rebound. I also knew that I have the opportunity to go in and drive, there will always be other people waiting right there to just pass the ball off to and we knew that they would make those shots too.”

As a senior, Simpson averaged 15.8 points — fourth among area schools — 3.6 assists and 5.1 rebounds per game to help lead the Tigers to a Section 2AAA championship and Class AAA sixth-place finish.

“If you watched us play, it didn’t take long to figure out that we needed Bri to put the ball in the basket,” Marshall girls basketball coach Dan Westby said, adding that while other players were able to score for the Tigers, the team tended to struggle if Simpson had an off night.

Despite being the offense’s focal point, Simpson made sure to credit her teammates for her ability to get looks at the rim. She said that the team’s improved spacing helped the flow of the offense and allowed players to cut to the basket and find open shooters to kick the ball out to.

While Simpson plays selflessly and was certainly able to find her open teammates, her speed and athleticism made it very difficult for opposing teams to stop her when she made her mind up about going to the basket.

“Watching her play, the first thing that jumps off the page is her speed… she’s almost faster with the ball than without it,” Westby said.

Photo by Jake McNeill
Marshall guard Bri Simpson (23) reacts after hitting a game-tying buzzer-beater in the Marshall girls basketball team’s game against St. Peter on Feb. 3 in Marshall. The game went to three overtimes before the Saints held on for a 78-75 win.

A team’s ability to shoot the ball from long range is key for slashers. When a team can knock down 3-pointers, opposing defenses need to close out on the perimeter, leaving space for slashers such as Simpson. When Marshall lost its most efficient 3-point shooter, Lexie Bednarek, to a knee injury, one could be forgiven for thinking that Simpson’s scoring numbers would suffer due to her opponents being able to close in on her more. Yet, if anything, she found more ways to score.

“Losing Lexie, she was our best 3-point shooter for sure, so we really had to adjust to being able to rely on her to hit those threes at key moments… so I think what really happened was she was always there supporting everyone on the team and we had a bunch of younger guards step up and really take in another scoring role or even in facilitating,” Simpson said.

Despite the blow to Marshall’s perimeter shooting, Simpson continued to help the underdog Tigers to a successful season. Marshall lost twice to St. Peter in January, the Tigers dropped two straight games to the Saints, including the Big South Conference Championship. In an overtime matchup in February, they also fell short to Jordan, 48-46. When the Section 2AAA tournament came around, Marshall was far from the favorite.

“Even when the rankings first came out, we all knew that first half of our season, all of the teams were going to be very evenly matched,” Simpson said. “Every time we played St. Peter was always a 3, 4-point game. We played Jordan and it was an overtime 2-point game. We knew that all of those things would be evenly matched, but I think the biggest key when it came down to those games was getting the right mindset beforehand.

“We always had made sure we had a lot of relaxation and were doing a lot of team bonding things in the locker room while we were waiting and then going over scouting reports for sure.”

After defeating New Ulm in the section quarterfinals, the Tigers were set to face an old foe in Jordan.

With under five minutes to play in the semifinals, Jordan held a 38-31 lead. It seemed like the Tigers’ season was over, but a 6-0 run brought Marshall within a point.

With 6.6 seconds remaining, Randi Wendorff came up with a steal and found Simpson streaking down the court for the game-winning layup.

“I think that’s like the biggest game I’m probably going to have, I talked to Randi about it all the time,” Simpson said. “The way I had turned the ball over, but then… all of a sudden, Randi’s getting the steal, and then there’s an open layup and then We’re all just so excited for that.”

Less than a week later, Simpson came up clutch again in the Section 2AAA Championship, another revenge match against St. Peter. With the Tigers trailing by 9 points at halftime, Simpson came up clutch again. She finished with 25 points to lead the Tigers to a 61-45 win and a state tournament berth.

One part of Simpson’s game that she perhaps hasn’t gotten enough credit for is her defensive abilities. She was often rotated onto the opposing team’s best scorer, save for when she was too tired from her work on the offensive end, and she took pride in making it difficult for other teams to score.

“We were really good at keeping people in front of us. Mr. Westby always stressed the importance of defense, probably 60, 70% of practice was just working on defense and going over the repetitive moves,” Simpson said. “We really worked on rotating in [situations where we were trying to shut down one specific scorer] where the games mattered the most. Like at St. Peter, we worked on defensive rotations for two whole practices… our defense was like a really big team point this year.”

Marshall fell short in the state quarterfinals against top-seeded Becker but defeated Grand Rapids in the consolation bracket before ending its season in the fifth-place game against DeLaSalle, which they lost 73-67 in double overtime. Still, Simpson had no regrets about how the season ended.

“I’m really going to remember our last state game because it was the last game of a lot of our high school careers… I think we all just knew this will be our last time with the people we’ve been playing with for a very long time, so we just kind of went out there and it wasn’t the result we wanted, but going into two overtimes, it was just a great game.”

Simpson will continue to play basketball at the college level at the University of Chicago, where she will be studying biological chemistry. She also expressed her excitement to see the other seniors playing college basketball or volleyball in the Southwest Minnesota area compete after graduation.