ROCHESTER — The Awesome Blossoms looked to be headed for a win for a couple of stretches, but they couldn’t hold on as they saw their season come to an end in a 51-47 loss to No. 1 seeded Faribault Bethlehem Academy (21-7 overall) in the Section 1A West Division championship game in Mayo Civic Arena Saturday.

No. 3 BP (13-14 overall) led by eight in the first half and they took a 42-38 lead when Michael Thomas finished off a baseline drive with 4:18 left in the game, but the Cardinals answered with 8-0 run over the next two and a half minutes.

“We had a few defensive breakdowns in the last three or four minutes, but it was back and forth,” BP head coach John Bruns said. “We did a very good job and it was a heck of a game both ways. It’s what a championship game is supposed to be I guess.”

After FBA tied the game at 42 with 3:05 left, BP missed a pair of threes that would’ve given them a lead and the Blossoms lost a little more momentum when Ryan McCabe, who scored nine points, had to leave the game when he sustained a cut on his head on an offensive foul by FBA.

FBA’s Adam Clark gave his team the lead for good on a jump shot with 1:59 left and Kyle Fitzen came up with a steal on BP’s next possession and he hit two free throws to make it 46-42 with 1:48 left.

“We played very good defense throughout the game, but there was a couple of stops that we didn’t get,” Bruns said. “Very good defense sometimes isn’t good enough against a team like FBA.”

Thomas, who finished with 14 points, had to sit for a seven-minute stretch in the second half after he picked up his fourth foul. After sitting, Thomas came out and immediately hit a three from the wing that gave his team a 38-36 lead.

“I was feeling really good and I thought we had a good chance of winning (at that point),” Thomas said. “But we just didn’t come out on top.”

The Blossoms started the game on a high note as they used a 9-0 run to take an 11-3 lead with 10:54 left. Then they went on an eight-minute scoring drought as the Cards took a 13-11 lead.

“An eight point lead is fine, but we could’ve stretched it out to 15 or 16 points,” Bruns said. “We definitely missed out on that. I think we settled for too many outside shots and we didn’t get it inside enough. We weren’t necessarily going to our strengths.”

Thomas said that FBA’s defense stepped up when it mattered most.

“They shut down John (Rumpza) and we just didn’t get very many open shots,” Thomas said. “They were playing very good defense. It gets kind of frustrating, but you just have to play the way you’re used to.”

BP battled back to take a 21-15 lead at the break, but it didn’t score for the first four minutes of the second half as FBA put together an 8-0 run and it was a back-and-forth game the rest of the way.

The Blossoms got a lot of help from Rumpza throughout the postseason as he averaged 21 points in BP’s three playoff games.

“There’s not enough to superlatives to use on a freshman who leads like he did this year,” Bruns said.

BP 21 26 — 47

FBA 15 36 — 51

BP scoring: John Rumpza, 21; Michael Thomas, 14; Ryan McCabe, 9; Weston Fiebiger, 2; Gabe Kartes, 1; field goals: 32 percent (14-for-43); three-pointers: 27 percent (5-for-18); free throws: 73 percent (14-for-19); rebounds: 32 (Thomas, 9); turnovers: 10