Thursday
It's Thursday now, and I'm courtside at Williams Arena. Watch for my game reports at kjasr.com. My reports from Target Center yesterday (all 6 games) are posted at kjasr.com as we speak.
Wednesday
Target Center
AAAA
Tomorrow I'll be watching AAAA (and half of the AA games) at the Target Center, and sending reports to Kevin Anderson for his Web site at . That's short for Kevin J. Anderson Sports Resources. It's a great site. Go see it if you haven't.
But here are my predictions, beginning with the games I'll see.
10 a.m.--Lakeville North over Northfield easily. Kevin says 65-33 and that sounds about right.
12 noon--Melissa Borstner and St. Francis will give Chaska a better game than you think. But, of course, Chaska will still win.
2 p.m.--Wayzata will give Maple Grove a better game than you think. But Maple Grove will still win. If anybody could possibly beat Lakeville North, it's Maple Grove.
4 p.m.--White Bear Lake beats St. Michael-Albertville by a dozen or more.
AA
6 p.m.--Rochester Lourdes beats St. Peter. Myron Glass is not gonna lose today.
8 p.m.--Hawley is unbeaten and Minnehaha has 9 losses. Still, this will be close. But I'll take Hawley.
Williams Arena
First off, the AAA seedings bombed big-time. Basically you've got 1 vs. 5, 2 vs. 6, 3 vs. 7 and 4 vs. 8.
10 a.m.--#1 DeLaSalle will beat New Prague fairly handily, even though the Trojans are the best of the 4 unseeded teams.
12 noon--Hill-Murray beats Annandale fairly handily.
2 p.m.--Benilde-St. Margaret's beats Willmar fairly handily.
4 p.m.--Bemidji and Sartell looks like a toss-up, though I'll go with the team with the superstar go-to type of player. That would be Bemidji and Kayla Hirt.
AA
The best double-header of the day:
6 p.m.--Watertown-Mayer edges Braham, Marisa Janning slightly outplays Rebekah Dahlman.
8 p.m. Sauke Centre over Pipestone. The toughest call of the day, by far. The winner becomes the fave to win it all.
Thursday
Williams Arena
11 a.m.--Buffalo Lake-Hector beats Goodhue.
1 p.m.--Unbeaten Northern Freeze nips Maranatha.
3 p.m.--Barnum clobbers Nashwauk-Keewatin.
5 p.m.--Parker's Prairie beats SW Minnesota Christian with a couple points to spare.
Thursday and Friday Target Center Semi-Finals
AAAA--Lakeville North beats Chaska by 10, and Maple Grove beats White Bear Lake by 7.
AAA--Nobody can handle DeLaSalle or Benilde, except one another.
AA--Hawley beats Rochester Lourdes by a couple, and Sauk Center beats Watertown-Mayer by 5.
A--Northern Freeze beats Buffalo Lake-Hector fairly easily, while Barnum eases past Parker's Prairie.
Saturday Finals Target Center
Barnum 69 Northern Freeze 61
Sauk Center 56 Hawley 53
Benilde 65 DeLaSalle 63
Lakeville North 54 Maple Grove 45
All-Tournament First 5
Cassie Rochel and Rachel Banham, Lakeville North, co-MVPs
Ellen Edison, Maple Grove
Kali Peschel, Sauk Center
Katrina Newman, Banum
The Sections
I'm mostly familiar with AAAA. In the other classes I'm going by what I hear and read. But in AAAA, I've seen almost all of the better teams.
AAAA
My top 10 is a little different than the Minnesota Basketball News top 10, the most widely published "poll." I'm more in agreement with the QRF ratings at www.minnesota-scores.net.
1. Lakeville North (#1 MBN, #1 QRF), 2. Edina (2, 2), 3. Maple Grove (4, 5), 4. Eden Prairie (5, 3), 5. Chaska (7, 6), 6. White Bear Lake (3, 8), 7. Bloomington Kennedy (6, 7), 8. Eastview (x, 9), 9. Mpls. South (10, x), 10. Hopkins (x, 4).
The Sections
Section 1--Northfield, if it matters. The Section 1 representative will be 1 and done.
Section 2--Wow. 5 top 10 teams. I love Edina, but against the field they're just even money. I think Chaska matches up the best against Edina, but Eden Prairie is played very well right now.
Section 3--Lakeville North all the way until proven otherwise.
Section 4--White Bear Lake should win the section pretty easily, but it lacks the inside game to go much further.
Section 5--I love Megan Waytashek and Centennial, and I haven't seen Mounds View though, on paper, they look very tough. Still, Maple Grove is a tough, tough group of kids.
Section 6--As in past years, it's Hopkins vs. Mpls. South. It's just that, for the first time in many years, neither is regarded as a state championship contender. I like South by a whisker.
Section 7--Cambridge and St. Francis, Whitney Olson and Melissa Borstner. Too close to call, but call it Cambridge.
Section 8--The favorites, Buffalo and St. Michael-Albertville, both come into the playoffs off of not 1, but 2 losses. But there's nobody else that can beat either of them. Flip a coin and it comes up St. Michael.
State Tournament
At the state tournament, they seed the top 4 and that would be Lakeville North, Edina, White Bear Lake and Maple Grove, then match the seeds up against the field by a random draw. I'll just call it 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, etc.
Lakeville North over Northfield by 30 points. Rachel Banham and Cassie Rochel could sit this one out and the Panthers would still win.
Maple Grove over Mpls. South by 5. A tough match-up for Maple Grove, which is not the quickest. Still, they'll make it very hard for South to score.
Edina over St. Michael-Albertville by 12. Katybeth Biewen and Taylor Young are too much for most teams, certainly too much for the defending AAA champs just moved up a class.
White Bear Lake over Cambridge by 7. The Bears are overrated by MBN at #3, lacking an inside game as they are. Still, guards Julia Dysthe, Carly Jensen and Alexis Foley do a lot of things among them, enough to beat an unrated opponent.
In the semi-finals, Maple Grove will provide more resistance than Lakeville North is accustomed to, but it will still be a 10 point game. And Edina will take White Bear Lake inside for an 8 point win.
In the final, Edina will hang with Lakeville North for awhile but the Panthers superior depth will tell the tale in the 2nd half. Lakeville North by 8. Maple Grove takes 3rd place by a dozen over White Bear Lake.
Regular Season AAAA All-State
Rachel Banham, Lakeville North, jr.
Katybeth Biewen, Edina, soph.
Ellen Degler, Chaska, most improved
Cassie Rochel, Lakeville North
Megan Waytashek, Centennial
2nd Team
Aubrey Davis, Bloomington Kennedy, jr.
Julie Kruse, Maple Grove
Shayne Mullaney, Eden Prairie, soph.
Haley Thomforde, Eastview, when healthy
Taylor Young, Edina
AAA--AA--A
Here, most of what I know is from reading the paper and the Web.
In AAA:
1--New Prague beat Red Wing twice but both ended up 9-5 in the Missota. Can they do it again? Yes.
2--Worthington going the wrong direction, looks like Willmar.
3, 4, 6, 7--N0 brainers. Nobody is going to beat DeLaSalle, Hill-Murray, Benilde or Bemidji at the section level, though 5AAA has some very good teams.
5--#3 Princeton beats #2 Annandale but not #1 Rogers.
8--Sartell coming on strong, knocks off Alex.
In the first round, DeLaSalle beats Sartell easily, Hill-Murray edges Willmar, Bemidji beats Rogers, and Benilde beats New Prague.
In the semis, DeLaSalle advances easily, while Benilde edges Bemidji. Ho hum, another all-Catholic final. Benilde pulls the upset.
In AA:
1--Rochester Lourdes and Myron Glass over Caledonia in the final.
2--Upset special: St. Peter beats LeSueur and Blue Earth.
3--The Lac qui Parle upset special finally jumps the tracks; Pipestone advances easily.
4--Mpls. Roosevelt vs. St. Croix Lutheran has a state tournament feel. Roosevelt advances.
5--I don't know how they do it, but Howard Lake finds a way to win.
6--It's a shame that New London-Spicer and Sauk Center can't both get to state, but there it is. The Wildcats advance, Kali Peschel hangs it up.
7--Nobody in this neck of the woods can challenge Braham.
8--Look out for Hawley.
The upper bracket looks like the semis: Rochester Lourdes beats St. Peter, and Hawley shocks Roosevelt. In the lower, it's Howard Lake over Braham, and New London-Spicer over Pipestone. In the semis, Hawley beats Lourdes and NLS avenges last year's semi-final loss to the Lakers. NLS beats Hawley in a great AA final match-up.
More to come.
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