Submitted photo The Wabasso Rabbits girls basketball team celebrates their state championship in 2004 with a a team photo.Front row (l-r): Manager Bethany (Price) Olsen, Chelsey (Wegner) Andersen, Ashley (Prokosch) Wendler, Jessica VanLoy, Melissa (Plaetz) Mathiowetz, Katie (Schumacher) Kinzel. Middle row: Andrea (Fennern) Jefferson, Jamie (Guetter) Engelstad, Jessica Dallman, Angie (Beranek) Traxler, Andrea (Schueller) Johnson, Bridgette Grunewald. Back row: Coach Neil Dolan, Manager Adria (Dolan) Alcorn, Tori (Zimmerman) Baumgartner, Marisa Baune, Mariah (Bierl) Norberg, Krista (Larson) Sitzmann, Katelynn (Rohlik) Goche, Coach Stan Rohlik, Coach Bob Dolan

WABASSO — Twenty years ago, a rural town of around 700 people in Redwood County saw history made.

That town was Wabasso and that history came from its high school as the Wabasso Rabbits became the first team from the Tomahawk Conference to ever win a state girls basketball championship.

Twenty years later and with 50 seasons of girls basketball in the Tomahawk complete, the Rabbits remain the only team from the conference to accomplish the feat.

The Rabbits finished that 2003-04 season 18-0 in conference and 29-4 overall after a 59-48 win over Underwood in the state championship game at Target Center on March 20.

What made the team so special depends upon who is asked.

For head coach Neil Dolan, who coached that title-winning team and still coaches to this day, focus and leadership were key.

“Those girls were extremely focused,” Dolan said. “They were a team that would really do anything that you asked them to do. They listened and performed and we also had great leadership. Jessica VanLoy was our coach on the floor and we had good seniors that year, too, extremely good seniors and good underclassmen, too. But as far as the team itself, they were such a close unit and basically listened and did anything we asked them to do. And believed — that was really important.”

The Rabbits were a full-court team during the season offensively and defensively, utilizing a fast break whenever possible to score easy points in transition. When not on the fast break, the Rabbits often used motion and ball screens to score.

Their full-court pressure defense was led by senior forward VanLoy, who Dolan called one of the best players and athletes he’s ever coached.

And while VanLoy was a big part of the offense and a 1,000-point scorer during her career, she prided herself on her role of being a menace on defense.

“I was on the ball and I think I was longer than most people expected me to be and I just caused havoc,” she said. “So I chased the ball around and jumped all over the place and tipped balls, and we got steals and that’s how we scored a lot of our points.”

VanLoy, who now resides in Rice, Minn., said she had many emotions after defeating Hills-Beaver Creek in the Section 3A title game to advance to the state tournament.

“The minute the buzzer rang in the section finals game, it was just ecstatic, excitement and the biggest relief that we had finally done it,” VanLoy said. “Being in that game, this was our third consecutive year of being in that game, finally being able to break through the barrier to get there was just a euphoric moment in itself.”

Ashley Wendler (née Prokosch) was another senior and 1,000-point scorer at the school, passing that career milestone during a 2004 section playoff game against Lakeview. The frontcourt player, now living in Aberdeen, S.D., started alongside junior post player Katie Schumacher, who also passed 1,000 career points.

Wendler said most of the players played basketball together at a young age, which helped guide them as varsity players. She also said everyone — from the starters to the bench — had a role in making the team so successful.

“Jess and I were both co-captains and we all had our own role on the team,” Wendler said. “We each scored, we each contributed to the game — offense, defense. Neil had specific plays, like, this one is good for this player. We had girls off the bench that would run the baseline. I feel everybody had their role in the game and that’s how we were that successful.”

The Rabbits’ only losses that season occurred in the regular season to Lincoln HI, Worthington, Tracy-Milroy-Balaton and Windom Area. Dolan said the loss to TMB, a double-OT loss later in the regular season, woke his team up and prepared them for the Section 3A tournament.

VanLoy said she was confident that that year’s team was a true title contender after it won the section title, defeating HBC 54-42 in a game that sophomore Andrea Fennern scored her 1,000th career point in.

“I think the biggest hurdle that we had that year was the section championship game,” VanLoy said. “That was just in our head that if we could get past that, then that was all we cared about, nobody would take us down after that. And we had such good competition … Fulda, Hills-Beaver Creek, Lincoln HI was so good back then, so we had to dogfight to get there.

“Just in our heads, once we finally broke through that barrier, I feel like it was just a, ‘This is our time, this is our opportunity and we’re not going to squander it.’ And Neil is such a planner and got tapes from the other teams and had a game plan for us. His positive attitude and motivation, there was never a doubt.”

Wendler said she couldn’t pinpoint an exact time she felt confident the Rabbits were bound to end the season as champions, but she knew early on in the season they had a very good chance of doing so.

She said the team had nerves heading into the section tournament after previously coming up short in the section finals, but the win over HBC to advance to state only proved the team’s confidence was warranted.

“Those section games — that Hills-Beaver Creek one — once we won that game, it was relief,” Wendler said. “The weight off your shoulders, we finally did it, we can move on. But I think how we were playing and practicing throughout the year, you look at each other and are like, ‘We’re good.’ … Our confidence was more from years prior.

“We had great teams, but we finally had the chemistry. We worked together on and off the court, too. We did team things together, carpooled and watched games, went to movies together, went to other people’s parents’ homes and had supper before games. So there was a lot on and off the court that we did together.”

That season also saw the Rabbits take down Fulda 38-36 on a last-second bucket by VanLoy, which she described as one of her favorite memories from the season.

“The two years before that year, we lost to them [Fulda] in the section finals game. And then, my senior year, it wasn’t in the playoffs and it was just a regular-season game that the school scheduled,” VanLoy said. “We played at SMSU still and we beat them on a last-second shot. The crowd was huge and we finally beat them. I feel like that was the getting-the-monkey-off-our-back game.”

VanLoy and Wendler also both said the community and fellow conference teams were supportive during the Rabbits’ run to state, something they were happy to see.

Heading into the state tournament, the Rabbits were unranked. The proverbial underdog label did nothing to hurt their confidence, however.

With the new challenge of playing on a bigger stage at state, the Rabbits answered with a 57-28 win over Barnesville at Williams Arena in the first round. The Rabbits then went to Target Center and took down No. 1-ranked Kittson County Central 52-44 in the semifinals.

“Kittson County Central was our second game and they were unbeaten, 28-0 when we played them. I remember shaking hands with their coach before the game and she hardly gave us the time of day,” Dolan said. “It was like we had no business being there. We ended up beating them, we played extremely well. We beat them by [8] points and we had everybody contributing in that game. We matched 3-pointers for 3-pointers.

“Chelsey Wegner, I remember that game, had a great game. All the girls did, but Chelsey wasn’t a big scorer for us and I think she hit probably three 3-pointers and a couple free throws. And I also remember that we put four girls on the All-State Tournament Team. And I remember members of the committee said it was awful hard to not put five [of our] girls on that team. So that said a lot for those girls.”

Those four All-State Tournament Team players were VanLoy, Wendler, Fennern and Schumacher.

After that win over KCC, the Rabbits moved on to the Class A State Championship game against Underwood.

In that game, Wendler said she remembered one of Underwood’s top players, Ashley Samuelson, scoring on her after a defensive breakdown.

“When we were on defense, there was a play where Katie would play high or I would play low, we wanted to go in front and behind her [Samuelson], and play defense,” Wendler said. “I remember this one play, I couldn’t get around her, Katie was on the center line and I was trying to get around her. Well, [Samuelson] got the ball and then she scored around me. The first thing I did was look over to coach — you know how your parents give you that look? He gave me that look and just from then on, you knew you were never doing that again, you’re getting in your spot, you’re getting in front of her because it was the last game of our senior year, our whole basketball career.

“I remember that. But we watch the film every year around the state tournament. I have the DVD here somewhere in my house and my kids, they’re little, ‘Was that you, mommy?’ And you replay those and you’re like, ‘That did happen.’ I just remember that one specific play because I didn’t do it right.”

Despite being up against a tough squad and Samuelson, who went on to play women’s basketball at North Dakota State University, the Rabbits never trailed in the game and went on to win the state title.

While 20 other teams in the conference have made it to state over the last 50 years, Wabasso still stands alone as the one team that was able to break through and capture a state championship.

“It is a daunting task [to win a state title],” Dolan said. “If you think about it, you’ve got to get through your section, subsection and then play three really good teams to win it all. It takes a little luck, it takes focus. It’s not an easy thing.”

VanLoy said she was shocked that the 2003-04 Rabbits squad is still the lone team from the Tomahawk’s 50 seasons to win a state title because of the talented teams and players from the conference during its time.

That doesn’t mean she’s upset to be a part of such a historic achievement, however.

“It’s a neat statistic, that’s for sure,” VanLoy said. “Like I said, I was a little shocked right away but proud because we put the work in and we had the right team at the right time and everything kind of flowed together. When our subs needed to come off the bench, they did a great job. Just the effort and attitude that we had going into that state tournament was hands-down something that, like I said before, it wasn’t anything we didn’t know we could do.”