State girls basketball look back: A coach confused, another certain of something, a team ready for ’25

It had to happen sometime.

In the aftermath of Minnetonka’s 64-56 victory over Hopkins on Saturday night in the Class 4A girls basketball championship game, Brian Cosgriff, who coached 21 seasons and won seven state titles as Hopkins’ head coach, talked about the program he inherited when he became Minnetonka’s coach in 2022.

“I was handed a great program. Leah Dasovich left me a really good program,” Cosgriff said.

He went on to talk about how supportive his new school has been, saying, “The entire basketball community within Hopkins has welcomed me with open arms.”

He called his team “Hopkins” instead of “Minnetonka.”

Junior guard Aaliyah Crump whispered, barely audibly, “Minnetonka.” Twice.

Cosgriff gave a slightly sheepish grin and said: “Sorry. When you’ve been at a place 37 years, it happens.”

A dejected group of Hopkins players had just heard from coach Tara Starks that she was dissatisfied with their effort in the early stages of the championship game Saturday.

“I told them: ‘There was a stretch of about three minutes that you guys did exactly what we asked you to do. If you can do that for longer than a three-minute stretch, then you’re in this game,’ ” Starks said.

Her words had her players already thinking about next year.

“I think this loss, for us, is just redirection,” junior guard Tatum Woodson said. “I think next year this will just refocus us and give us more fuel to our fire to get back in this position and hopefully succeed. We have four starters coming back. We just got to get more momentum to come back and finish this off next year.”

Goodhue coach Josh Wieme made clear after his team won the Class 1A championship Saturday why coaching, ever more scrutinized, keeps him coming back:

“I have two daughters. One is in seventh grade, and one’s in fifth grade,” he said. “To watch how they look at these kids as heroes, as idols and want to be like them, I see it firsthand. And at their age, they want to be the next ones, and I hope that’s the case. So my daughter’s interest in following their footsteps, right now, is the thing that keeps it going for me.”