Minnesota’s best: Roseau’s Borowicz named Miss Basketball
NORTHFIELD, Minn.—During her six-season high school basketball career, Kacie Borowicz passed a lot of standouts from Section 8 on Minnesota’s list of career scoring leaders.
On Friday, the Roseau High School senior achieved something that no player from Section 8 previously had. Borowicz was named the winner of the 2019 Minnesota Miss Basketball award.
The UND recruit became the first player from the current Section 8A and 8AA alignments in northwest Minnesota to be a recipient since the award started in 1978.
When she was announced as the winner, “I just stood there for a couple of seconds,” Borowicz said. “I really wasn’t expecting it.
“It’s not that I’m better than a lot of the great players from up here (in northwest Minnesota). It just took this long for people to realize we have good players. This is for all of those players.”
Borowicz finished her career with 3,551 points—the most by any player from 8A-8AA and ranked seventh on Minnesota’s career scoring list. She passed Megan Taylor (3,300 points) as Roseau’s career scoring leader this season.
“I know there are a lot of feelings that outstate girls don’t always get a lot of credit,” Roseau coach Kelsey Didrikson said. “But this (selection) is so accurate.
“They said it’s a career award. And I don’t know who among this year’s seniors would have had a better career, both individually and with team success, than Kacie has.”
Borowicz capped her career with a senior season in which she averaged 27.7 points, 8.3 rebounds, 3.8 steals and 2.6 assists. She was named to the Minnesota Girls Basketball Coaches Association’s Class AA all-state team for the third consecutive season after being an honorable mention as a freshman.
Roseau was Section 8AA champion and a top-four placer at the Class AA state tournament in each of Borowicz’s five seasons as a starter, winning the state title in 2017.
“Kacie is a very versatile, dynamic player,” Didrikson said. “She’s done it all.
“She evolved as a player. When she first came up to varsity as a seventh-grader, she was more of a point guard and ball distributor. After that her perimeter game and defensive ability grew. And this year, because we lacked size, she became more of an inside player.”
Borowicz didn’t balk at having to play different roles. “I actually had a lot of fun learning to play the different positions,” she said.
And, as the numbers and honors indicate, Borowicz thrived.
Photo at the top: Roseau guard Kacie Borowicz (11) goes up for a shot against East Grand Forks Senior High in a game this season. Nick Nelson / Grand Forks Herald