St. Francis senior Cody Wald estimated he slept about three hours last Thursday, the night before his team played Andover in the Class 4A, Section 7 basketball championship.
Wald was battling a flulike symptoms last week. He said he woke up Friday morning tired and dehydrated but determined to play.
"There was no way I was going to sit," Wald said. "I just wanted to be able to help contribute."
Wald went to urgent care and received fluids intravenously Friday and played most of the game that night. He scored six points as St. Francis defeated Andover 66-55 and clinched its first state tournament berth since 2000.
"He found a way to play on a few graham crackers and water and was extremely effective," coach Ryan Hauge said. "There aren't many leaders you ever get to coach like that."
Wald is part of a senior class that has scored more than 80 percent of St. Francis' points this season, including 53 of the team's 66 Thursday. The 10-player class helped the Fighting Saints improve from nine victories in 2011-12 to 17 last season and 24 this season.
Senior Jake Johnson has been key in St. Francis' success this season and leads the team with 19.3 points per game. He scored a team-high 16 points in the section championship, helping St. Francis erase the memory of its loss to Andover in the section semifinals last season.
Johnson will play for Northern State next year. Until then, he and St. Francis' seniors have at least one more game together — a matchup with No. 3 seed Cretin-Derham Hall (23-6) on Wednesday at Target Center.
