Finals Saturday Previews Part 2

<p>#1 Mountain Iron-Buhl and #2 Goodhue both came through to Saturday’s Class A final. MIB evaded Maranatha’s defensive pressure long enough to pull away to a 79-65 win, while Goodhue’s defensive pressure overwhelmed Cromwell 70-48.</p> <p>The winners shot over 40 percent, the losers under 40 percent. It’s a pretty simple game.</p> <p>For MIB it was revenge not only for last year’s heartbreaking 75-74 loss to Maranatha in the state semi on a buzzer-beater put-back, but also for a 2012 loss in the state final 49-37. And, it sets up a rematch of a December game in which MIB inexplicably hammered Goodhue 78-34. Nobody expects anything like that tomorrow, certainly not Goodhue or MIB.</p> <p>The loss to MIB was “a wakeup call” for Goodhue, according to guard Sidney Lodermeier. “It changed our mindset and made a lot of us realize we were going to have to have different roles this year.” Coach Josh Wieme agreed that it was “a wakeup call.” “That really refocused us. (The players) saw how far we needed to go if we wanted to compete with the best teams in our class.”</p> <p>Meanwhile, MIB players mentioned after today’s win that they’ve been to the tournament now 7 straight years but they haven’t been back to a championship game since the loss to Maranatha in 2012. In other words, it’s a hard road. Now, they’re back on the Williams Arena floor on Saturday, but that’s a game they’ve never won.</p> <p>They know that they’re going to have to be strong with the ball while coach Wieme said that they handle the ball really well and that point guard Mya Buffetta “is strong with the ball and is really hard to turn over.” Wieme said, “We have fantastic athletes. In Class A I really believe that among Maddy (Miller) and Emily (Benrud) and Haley (Lesvold) we have 3 of the quickest, fastest, most tenacious defensive players in the state, and we have 3 of them. So, we attack defensively.”</p> <p>Then there’s the inside game where guard Lodermeier—yes, the same girl who dominates on the perimeter; just imagine if there were 2 of her—also is hard to handle. She had 12 boards yesterday and guard Benrud 11, including 6 on offense. But “Load”-ermeier is the real load inside. Put a smaller defender on her and—boom!—post-up, 2 points. Thank you very much.</p> <p>MIB can actually match Goodhue for size—until Goodhue goes to the bench for 6-3 Lexie Lodermeier. But with or without Lexie, Goodhue has a huge advantage in strength and the ability to play aggressively, to “attack on defense.” It’s hard to see that approach with these athletes not being successful, and yet there’s that game—MIB 78 Goodhue 34. But as Sidney Lodermeier said, “That game was a long time ago.”</p> <p><strong>Our Pick: Goodhue 66 Mountain Iron-Buhl 61. </strong>Goodhue is just too strong for Class A.</p>