ROCHESTER — Ava Wallaker and the Goodhue High School girls basketball team could always tell Austin ‘Randy’ Holst was in attendance.

He always cheered on his Wildcats loud and proud.

“He was somebody you could always hear in the student section,” Wallaker said. “That’s what we knew him as.”

He was a light to all and that’s what has made these past two weeks so difficult.

Holst died unexpectedly in a car accident on Feb. 25 at the age of 17. The Goodhue community has been grieving since. His funeral was on Wednesday — just over 24 hours before Thursday’s Section 1, Class 1A final between the top-ranked Wildcats and No. 3 seeded Grand Meadow.

“He was one of our really good friends and he was in all of our classes,” Wallaker said. “Yesterday after the funeral, we kind of talked as a team like just use all of this emotion. It’s very emotional but just bring it all on the floor.”

The Wildcats were able to do just that, ramping up their patented pressure defense that would have had Holst loving every second of it in the student section. In the end, they more than made their community proud, showing great toughness to come away with a 46-27 victory over the Superlarks Thursday night at Mayo Civic Arena.

Their mental toughness was inspiring — even their coach was uplifted.

“Sports, there’s a great purpose and for this team, it’s just a great support network that they just immediately have that they can lean on,” Wildcats coach Josh Wieme said. “For the community to be able to cheer for something positive, that’s a great thing. When you have kids that carry themselves the way they do and play the way they do, they’re easy to root for. At the same time, we had a young man that was a pretty bright light for our school. We get to celebrate him, too, every time we get to advance and get our team together. I don’t know how these kids are doing it. They’re stronger than I can imagine.”

Goodhue wore warm-up shirts that featured an “R” with a heart around it. Around the Civic Center, there were plenty of “We heart Randy” signs.

“We knew we were playing for something bigger tonight,” Wallaker said.

Goodhue now has the opportunity to defend its Class 1A title. The Class 1A state tournament is set to begin Thursday, March 13 at Maturi Pavilion on the University of Minnesota campus.

The Wildcats (24-5) advanced once again behind their tenacious defense.

Mackenzie Lodermeier, Natalie Thomforde, Lola Christianson and Aubrey Christianson were like gnats on an over watered house plant, a consistent nuisance for the Grand Meadow offense. It made life difficult on the Superlarks throughout.

“It’s darn near impossible to replicate it in practice with what they do and how they scheme,” Grand Meadow coach Ryan Queensland said. “You can’t fully replicate it, but the girls did a nice job of watching film. The scout players did a great job. They gave us 100% effort in practice to give us as many looks as possible. We don’t go very deep. We did a good job fighting through fatigue. … But they are just a dog-gone good team. Have to give them credit.”

Goodhue held Grand Meadow to just 12 first-half points.

But the Wildcats themselves had a little trouble on the offensive end. That’s where Wallaker comes in.

The junior didn’t get a chance to play last season after major knee surgery following an injury suffered during her summer in AAU. She has had a chip on her shoulder all season and even more so Thursday night. She had 12 of her team-high 15 points in the first half as Goodhue took a 23-12 lead at intermission.

“It just feels amazing. You work so hard to get back to this point and on the court,” Wallaker said.

She also was playing with a heavy heart.

“Austin was one of (my) and my friends really good friends,” Wallaker said. “We grew up with him, we hung out with him outside of school.”

She along with the Wildcats no doubt made Austin and his family proud.

Grand Meadow (25-3) had trimmed the deficit to 33-23 with 7 minutes left, but that’s when Kendyl Lodermeier went to work.

The Upper Iowa University commit scored seven of the team’s next 10 points during a 10-0 run for the Wildcats that all but iced the game. Lodermeier finished with 14 points — 11 of them in the second half.

Now, the Wildcats are heading back to the state tournament for the third consecutive season.

“We do have a little target on our back, but we didn’t think about that,” Wallaker said. “Going up there we will just play as hard as we can like we normally do. At the end of the day, it is a basketball game, but we’re so excited and we worked so hard this year for it.”

Goodhue 46, Grand Meadow 27
GRAND MEADOW (27)
Lauren Queensland 17 P, 1 3-PT; Aspen Kolling 3 P, 1 3-PT; Gracie Foster 4 P; Naomi Warmka 3 P.
GOODHUE (46)
Natalie Thomforde 4 P, 1 3-PT; Lola Christianson 2 P; Kendyl Lodermeier 11 P, 2 3-PT; Ava Wallaker 15 P, 2 3-PT; Ashlee Barton 4 P; Ruby Schafer 4 P; Aubrey Christianson 5 P.
Halftime: GOOD 23, GM 12.
Free throws: GOOD 8-13;GM 5-6.
Three-point goals: GOOD 5; GM 2.