AAU State Championship game du jour

Grant McGinnis May 21, 2017 @ 10:45 AM

It wasn’t my intent to write two lengthy stories about games in the tournament’s top division. After starting with the Stars Hersch/High Impact Caddy encounter, the plan was to spread it around and offer up a little of this and a little of that from grades 8 through 11. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans. The 8th-grade battles never really materialized when I was around. Ditto for 9th grade, the best games of which were over at Bloomington Jefferson. By the time I found parking somewhere out by Waconia, Paige Bueckers had already left the building and Fury 2020 Blue was making things look easy. There were better games back at Kennedy including what turned out to be the game of the day. The Saturday matchup between Ellen Weise’s talented Metro Stars squad and the equally gifted 2018 team from Tayler Hill Elite was remarkable, not for the end result (a 47-43 win for the Metro Stars), nor for the numbers on the stats sheet (Morgan Hill was featured prominently as usual). What was remarkable was that the players could walk off the court at the end without the aid of an EMT. This was war. Make no mistake: these are two very talented basketball teams. The Hills boast the aforementioned Morgan of Minneapolis South, Elaina Jones of St. Paul Como Park, the unbelievably quick Ja’Hyia Gaston of Cooper, and the very gifted Masengo Mutanda of Armstrong (currently injured.) The Metro Stars can offer up Division I-bound Haley Moore of Cretin-Derham Hall, Amanda Pollard of Champlin Park, Sydney Zgutowicz of St. Francis and Tayzha Buck of Red Wing. On this day, the spotlight shone on two others. For Tayler Hill Elite, it was the bruising post Ariyon Kelley of Minneapolis South. For the Metro Stars, it was 5-11 guard Rachel Hakes of Woodbury. It’s not easy to describe Kelley’s game. Let’s keep it simple: she’s big, she’s bad, and she’s out there to keep her opponents honest. The hip check she threw on Hakes at mid-court could have been featured on an NHL highlight video. But Kelly also has a pretty nice touch around the basket, is a consistent scorer and rebounder, and has a motor that doesn’t quit. Then there’s Hakes, the cerebrally talented, multidimensional guard currently ranked 24th in the class of 2018. She’s the kind of kid that will probably play college ball at Harvard or Cornell, dazzling you with her knowledge of biomechanics or high finance as much as her ball handling. It’s inadequate to describe Hakes as competitive. The only words that kept coming to mind during Saturday’s game were ‘Lyndsey Whalen.’ I’m not saying Hakes is or will ever be a player of Whalen’s caliber, one of the all-time greats of women’s basketball. What I’m saying is Hakes possesses that innate toughness, that inner strength, that will to win that is Whalen’s calling card. No matter how much you throw at her, she keeps coming back for more. On this day, the Hills came at her with everything in their armory. The strategy was pretty clear: double-team Hakes at every opportunity and physically pound her into submission. Hakes’ counter strategy was to get up off the floor again and again with that devilish little smirk of hers that says, ‘That all you got?’ Trailing early and by four at the half, the Metro Stars opened the second stanza with an 8-0 run. The Hills came back from 8 points down to pull ahead on Morgan’s two free throws with 45 seconds left on the clock. Out of a time out, Buck knocked down a big three from the corner to give the Metro Stars a two-point margin. Pollard was fouled with 12 seconds left, and made both free throws to secure the victory. There was so much else that happened, but neither space nor time nor an old man’s memory permits me to provide you with all of the gory details. It will suffice to say that Tayler Hill Elite plays to win, and Rachel Hakes is one tough hombre. Only one team gets the W, however, and that went home to Woodbury.