Northport Girls Earn Redemption

Back in January, 41 days before this morning’s tipoff for the State B tournament, The Spokesman-Review took a look at the possible qualifiers.

At the time, Northport was 14-1 and considered a contender, but Selkirk was given the nod as the most likely to get to the Arena.

It took 36 days to prove the S-R wrong. The Mustangs qualified out of the Northeast B District on Friday, and Sunday morning at the state tournament draw they were waiting.

“You were wrong,” one of a half-dozen players at the draw said to a reporter, and they all joined in.

Later, Karen Sauvola said, “It fired us up a little bit. It made us want to prove you guys wrong so we could tell you. It made our coach more fired up than we are. He totally freaked.”

Coach Mike Burke took the story, highlighted the offending passage, made numerous copies and plastered them all over the school.

“I said, ‘Let’s prove them wrong,”’ Burke said. “When we were (watching) at (state) last year, that was our goal.”

The girls were more specific.

“We didn’t want to pay to watch it, we wanted to go free,” one said. Another added, “We wanted to sit in the soft seats.”

Burke explained, “They didn’t want to sit in the chairs with the … cup holes in them.

“We made the vow (last year) we would be in the state tournament. We’ve got some friends we usually sit with every year and we told them, ‘We will be here and you’ll be watching us.”’

Once the “We told you so” incentive was gone, the Mustangs found another motivator. A graphic listing state-qualifying teams in the Sunday paper listed Northpoint.

We promise to get it right, ladies, now that you’re here.

, DataTimes