2011 Player of the Year

GLENVILLE — Almost a four-year non-starter, Andrew Lau knew all he needed was an opportunity.

This year, he got it.

After beginning his senior season as the sixth man on the Glenville-Emmons boys’ basketball team, Lau, 17, moved into the starting lineup for the team’s fifth game of the season to fill in for injured Peter Hansen.

Lau started each game for the rest of the season and averaged 21.9 points and 11.5 rebounds per game while leading the Wolverines to a first-ever Southeast Conference championship.

Lau had set high hopes for himself this season — to average 15 points off the bench. Instead, he rarely scored less than 15 per game and dropped a school-record 43 points on Immanuel Lutheran on Jan. 14.

If somebody had told him before the season he’d score over 40 points in a game:

“I would have thought they were nuts,” Lau said. “I didn’t think I’d ever get a chance to score that many points in a game.”

Lau said he thought he was good enough but that you don’t always get the opportunities you wish for.

Coming off his junior season as a role player, Lau spent some time shooting in his driveway last summer — not a ton.

“An hour or two a day, three times a week,” he said, to improve his outside shooting.

And after the team’s four summer tournaments and the high school football season, Lau began his senior season coming off the bench.

The Wolverines started 3-0 and in the team’s fourth game of the season, against Lyle/Pacelli in Austin on Dec. 13, starting point guard Peter Hansen broke his ankle.

Lau was asked to start the very next night at Mabel-Canton and confidently took on his new role.

“I became more aggressive,” Lau said. “When I got the ball, I knew I had to get it into the basket. “

From that point on, Lau went on an offensive tear, scoring a career-high and school-record 43 points and 34 points two games later.

“I started to realize how easy it was for me to score,” Lau said. “I was very confident.”

Lau’s confidence was rubbing off on his teammates, too, and on Jan. 27, exactly halfway through the season, the Wolverines sat a perfect 14-0.

Lau attributed the team’s success to eight years of playing together and being prepared for every game.

“If we weren’t prepared, that was a shocker,” Lau said. “A lot of times we practiced for three hours, going over things to make sure we were prepared.”

After rolling through the first half of their schedule, Lau and the Wolverines began pondering the idea of a perfect season. The team lost, though, on Jan. 28 to Hope Lutheran, a team they’d beaten by 44 points earlier in the season.

Lau said that was the lowest point of the season.

“I didn’t want to talk to anyone,” he said. “I was really angry.”

Lau said he was also relieved because by playing with one loss there was less pressure on the team. The loss was the first of four losses in eight games, though.

“I struggled scoring during a few games,” Lau said. “We started to tighten up and had to run more sets. We didn’t run sets well.”

After the Wolverines’ worst stretch of the season, the team won their final three regular season games and first two postseason games to earn a spot in the Section 1A West final at Rochester Mayo Civic Arena — a place no Glenville-Emmons team had played before.

Playing No. 1-seeded Goodhue, the Wolverines fell behind early and trailed by eight at the break. In the second half, the two teams traded baskets and the Wolverines lost 55-46, ending Lau’s high school career.

Lau said he didn’t feel upset about losing until recently.

“It doesn’t hit you right away,” he said. “It hits you later that we were so close to state and should have won.”

Lau said he has no regrets about his senior season but wishes he had one last chance to leave it all on the floor.

“You don’t realize it but it goes so fast,” he said. “You wish you could go back and play one more game and go as hard as you can until there’s no time left. You don’t realize it until it’s gone.”

Lau plans on attending and playing basketball at Iowa Lake Community College in Estherville, Iowa, next season.