Johnson wins Miss Basketball

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BISMARCK — The winner of this year’s North Dakota Miss Basketball award put her best foot forward.

Minot High School senior Holly Johnson posted impressive numbers and led her team to an 18-7 record despite playing the entire season with a broken foot. She sat out the first three games of the season and then decided to play with the discomfort. Johnson, who helped the Majettes to fifth place in the state Class A tournament, was honored Saturday at the Class B girls tournament.

“Doctors said she could play and her parents said she could play,” Minot coach Todd Magnuson said. “They said she could play, but that she would be in pain.”

The 5-foot-11 forward averaged 17.5 points, 8 rebounds and 3.2 assists. She shot 44 percent from the field overall and 32 percent from 3-point range. She saved one of her best games for last, capping her prep career with 25 points and 17 rebounds in a 53-44 win over Mandan in the fifth-place game at the state tournament.

Johnson averaged 17 points and 11 rebounds in three tournament games in Fargo. She will return there next year to play at North Dakota State.

Magnuson said Johnson’s playing time was determined by how much pain she could endure. She never complained.

Johnson was a runaway winner in the voting of the North Dakota Associated Press Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. She joins Shelley Berg as the only Minot High School player to win Miss Basketball.

“Being a finalist has been a dream of mine since I was young,” Johnson said. “She said she wouldn’t let the injury, which will be surgically repaired in April, sidetrack her. “

“When I found out that it wouldn’t heal, I got scared that I wouldn’t make the season,” Johnson explained. “But I had so many people help make it possible. I look at it as a miracle.”

Johnson said playing through the injury helped the mental part of her game. “It helped me become mentally stronger throughout the year, having to deal with adversity that I had never had to deal with before. It made me a better person.”

Johnson beat out Fargo Shanley’s Rachel Weir and Washburn’s Spanky Clayton. The Minot player received 13 of 18 first-place votes and 76 points to become first Minot High player.

Weir, a 5-11 guard-forward, received two first-place votes and 44 points. She averaged 18 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.2 assists and steals for the Deacons, who went 19-6 and took fourth place at the state tournament.

Clayton, a 5-6 guard, averaged 22.2 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists and steals. She had five 30-point games for the Cardinals.

Tags: high school basketball, sports