Crusaders Getting the Point

Basketball is a reason to wake up in the morning at the Hulsebus household. It always has been. Even if it meant setting the alarm clock twenty minutes earlier on a winter school day, Aaron and Kayla Hulsebus would brave the cold, dark Minnesota dusk to spark up the competitive fire with some one-on-one in their driveway before it was time to go to elementary school. The extra pavement time must have paid off. Aaron and Kayla have grown up to be leaders of their respective Saint Croix Lutheran High School (West St. Paul) basketball teams. Aaron, a senior point guard and captain, led the Crusader boys with 17 points and five rebounds per game midway through January. Kayla, a sophomore point guard, was keeping pace with her older brother, leading the Crusader girls with 17 points and three steals. Kayla exploded onto the varsity basketball scene as a freshman last year, averaging 20 points and four steals per game, while shooting 38 percent from the three-point arc. David Mielke, coach of the St. Criox girls basketball team, said not only does he have a dangerous offensive player in Kayla, but she's the complete package. "Kayla is a special player because she does everything well," said Mielke, whose team started the season 6-3. "Not only can she score, but she gets her teammates involved, as well. She will see the whole floor and create situations in which her teammates are able to score. She is very unselfish - the team is first for her. She also plays tough defense. She's probably my best defender and she has an eye for the steal." Kayla attributes a big part of her success to her brother, who she learned a lot from through the years. "He has really good passes and he can see everything that's out there," Kayla said of Aaron. "He has a good three-point shot and a good pull-up jumper. "It really helped me because I had to go against him, so it always made me better. It helped my game out and he'd try to help me out with suggestions." Lucas Boehm, coach of the St. Croix boys basketball team, said his team is in good hands with Aaron as its floor general. "Aaron doesn't back down from a challenge," said Boehm, whose team started the season 5-2. "He has high expectations of himself, so he does a variety of things very well. As a coach, I trust him to take care of the ball on offense and to get after his man on defense." Aaron and Kayla learned the ins and outs of basketball at a young age from their parents. Their mother, Lori, played high school basketball for Minnesota Valley Lutheran in New Ulm, and their father, Larry, played at Elmore. Larry and Lori have been busy driving their kids around since Aaron and Kayla started playing organized basketball in second grade. Now, the tough thing is simultaneously tracking two busy varsity schedules. "They hope our games don't fall on the same days so they can watch both of us," Aaron said of his parents. "Otherwise, my dad ends up going with (Kayla) because he ends up doing the books for the girls' games and my mom watches me. But they try and switch off so they catch each of our games as much as they can." Basketball has always been a priority for the Hulsebus family. It started with two little kids waking up early to play in the driveway, but has blossomed into something much larger at St. Croix Lutheran High School. But for Aaron and Kayla, the competitive fire has remained the same. "We were at the gym this past weekend just shooting around," Aaron said. "We played around the world a bunch of times, just being competitive about who's going to win. Sometimes it turns into a bit of yelling about who's who and who won and stuff like that. It's definitely competitive." And thanks to the Hulsebus siblings, so are the Crusaders.