Cathedral off to State Basketball Tourney for 2nd Year in a Row [VIDEO]

ST. CLOUD -- It will be the Crusaders, not the Saints that will go marching into the Target Center Wednesday night.

Cathedral High School sent their boys basketball team off to the state tournament with a parade, that ended up going through the entire Catholic Community Schools.

The Crusaders ended the season at 25-5, enough to earn the 5th seed heading into the tourney. Senior center Mitchell Plombon says it feels great to head to the big show, especially with how they got there.

"Feels amazing, especially the way we won, Nick hit that amazing buzzer-beater, it was such an awesome experience, and now we get to go to the big tourney."

Keeping focused and not getting mentally ahead of their next game is key. However, Senior forward Michael Schaefer says they're confident no matter who they come up against at state.

"Right now we're focusing on Esko, but whoever we will play next, we're looking forward to playing them."

Head Coach Matt Meyer says he's confident in his team's ability to stay honed in on their current opponent.

"Next game up mentality. It helps that we have some experience, having been here before, so being here last year helps us out a lot. Just to kind of know what to expect. Just one game at a time, that's been our mindset all year."

This is the teams second straight trip to state. The 5th ranked Crusaders take on 4th ranked Esko at 8:00 p.m. You can hear the game on our sister station, AM1390 Granite City Sports.

The other area team heading to the state tournament is the Sauk Rapids-Rice Storm.