As the clock continued to count down and the teams locked in a seesaw affair, who was going to take over?

It was everybody for Albany.

Alyssa Sand had 18 points and 14 rebounds, Tatum Finley added 17 including a key late 3-pointer, and the second-seeded Huskies beat No. 3 Minnehaha Academy 60-52 in a Class 2A state girls basketball semifinal Friday night at Wiliams Arena.

Kylan Gerads scored 12 points and grabbed 10 rebounds for Albany.

The 30-1 Huskies will face two-time defending champion Providence Academy (27-4) in Saturday’s 2 p.m. final. The top-seeded Lions ran past Crosby-Ironton 92-54 in the other semifinal.

Albany, which fell 74-60 to Providence Academy in the 2023 final, beat the Lions by two on Dec. 19.

“We’re seniors, this is our last ever game we’ll give it everything we have and stick to what we know,” said Sand, a University of St. Thomas commit.

Minnehaha Academy lost in the semifinals for the third straight season, this time with a season-low for points.

“It’s hard,” said Addi Mack, who led the Redhawks with 25 points. “… It just came down to they made a couple shots, we didn’t. They had the momentum going for them and we couldn’t find a way to stop that.”

Albany was trailing by one point when Claire Lecy banked in an awkward 3-point shot, Sand swished another 25 seconds later, and the Huskies led 48-43 with seven minutes left. The Huskies did not trail again.

“They had a couple shots that banked in, we slipped on a couple rotations. It was one of those you just wish you could run back the next day,” said Minnehaha Academy coach Damien Lolar.

Findley scored from deep for a 53-47 lead. After Mack scored on a drive for the Redhawks (27-4), Sand spun and banked in a layup and Gerads scored underneath off a feed from Callie Holthaus for an eight-point cushion with 1:36 left.

“We know they were trying to make us go fast, and we realized that and so we just told ourselves to settle down and run through plays. The shots really came to us instead of forcing them,” Sand said.

A late free throw from Savanna Pelzer and a layup from Sand were the finishing touches.

“It’s been our motto, it’s a together thing,” said coach Aaron Boyum. “We have a lot of girls who have rightfully earned accolades, but at the same we always know there’s going to be somebody that comes into the game and there’s going to be a three-minute spurt that’s really important while they’re in there.”

Angel Hill had 11 points and Isa Griefenhagen had 11 rebounds off the bench for Minnehaha Academy which shot 31.7%, including 2 of 25 from deep.

“It felt like 2 for 455 for me,” Lolar said. “… If the shot’s not falling, and I believe I put that on the board, let’s adjust, and I don’t think we did.”

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