Cooper, Willmar, Northfield, Grand Rapids advance in AAA

Just before Class AAA action opened at 10 a.m. Wednesday morning at Williams Arena, more than one fan suggested that this was the most wide-open and competitive of the 4 classes. For some, that was their way of disagreeing with my choices of #3 Holy Angels and #4 DeLaSalle to meet in Saturday’s final. Well, sure enough, unseeded Grand Rapids ran away from Holy Angels 75-60 in the 4 p.m. game, while #5 Willmar overcame 27 turnovers, 18 DeLaSalle offensive rebounds and a 15-point halftime deficit to beat the #4 Islanders 52-47 at 12 noon. Meanwhile, #1 and #2 advanced, but in competitive fashion. Cooper led Alexandria just 43-42 at the 7 minute mark and pulled away to a 58-51 win. Mankato West came back from a 42-27 deficit to within 48-44 but that was with just 18 ticks left on the clock. Northfield added a FT for a 49-44 final margin. Grand Rapids 75 Holy Angels 60 Grand Rapids and Holy Angels played full court defenses most of the way, and ran as often as they could, and the ThunderHawks did those things a little bit better than the Stars on Wednesday night. Not only did Grand Rapids feature the most balanced scoring attack in Class AAA with all 5 starters in double figures, they also had 5 solid ball-handlers out there. No matter how much Holy Angels tried to ratchet up the defensive pressure, Grand Rapids successfully protected the ball and pushed it up court for easy transition baskets. “We knew that Holy Angels has a really great full-court trap,” Grand Rapids coach Kris Hamling said later, “so I knew that would give us a little bit of a struggle.” But, she was right. It gave her team a little bit of a struggle, but overall the ThunderHawks exploited it for a lot of open looks. “We knew that their diamond left our back girls open,” Hamling said, “so we told the girls, once you get it past (the 1st line of defense) you’ve got to look for our post players down there, and post players, if you’ve got an open shot, nice soft touch to the basket.” “We were expecting a fast-paced game,” guard Hannah DeMars said. “We worked on that in practice. Then when we hit our girls upcourt once or twice, we thought we should do it every time, because it was working.” The ThunderHawks took the lead for good at 21-19 on a jumper by Maggie Miska, and they led by as many as 8 at 27-19. But it was still close at 32-30 early in the 2nd half. Grand Rapids pushed the lead to 9 for the 1st time at 47-38 on a 3-pointer by Heaven Hamling, and 10 on a layup by Meara Beighley off a steal by Mya Roberts at 50-40 at 9:35. The Stars came within one at 53-52 but Grand Rapids quickly built it back to 7 on a backwards 3-point play—one FT, then a miss, an offensive board and a layup, all by Beighley—plus a 3-pointer by Liberty Blaine. Now Holy Angels was in trouble and started to foul. Grand Rapids calmly made 15-of-16 FT down the stretch. For Grand Rapids, Hamling scored 18, Beighley 17, Hannah DeMars 12, Miska 11 and Blaine 10 on 45 percent FG shooting and 81 percent from the line. “Teams focus so much on our guards,” Hamling said, “that they sometimes forget that we have do have good post players, too.” Only senior guard Megan Meyer was in double figures for the Stars, who shot a respectable 45 percent from the field, but just 28 percent from behind the arc and 38 percent from the line. Willmar 52 DeLaSalle 47 This game pretty much defies description, and belief. Willmar turned it over 27 times, gave up 18 offensive rebounds to the Islanders and trailed 29-14 at the half. And won. Willmar was not only down those 15 points at the half, they were also DOWN. Their confidence was just about shot. They could not handle DeLaSalle’s pressure defense, turning it over (15 times) almost as often as getting a shot (17 FG attempts). They made only 4 of those 17 shots, and just 5-of-13 FT. They were outscored 16-1 off turnovers, and 9-1 off the offensive glass. The only silver lining was that DeLaSalle had shot 30 percent, and so the Cardinals were only down those 15 points. And, early in the 2nd half they did nothing to begin to come back. OK, Jordyn Swoboda opened the half with a 3, but they were still down by 14 at 35-21 at 11:11. But neither was De doing anything to put Willmar away, missing their 1st 8 shots of the half. And, so, finally, Willmar began to come back, scoring 10 straight points while the Islanders missed another 5 shots. Finally Willmar took a 39-38 lead on a layup by Cayle Hovland as DeLaSalle missed another 4 shots and 3 straight FT. At this point DeLaSalle had shot 1-for-20 in the 2nd half. Willmar had turned it over 11 more times, too, but shot 52 percent. The Islanders needed a layup by Ayanna Gardner with 10 seconds remaining to force OT. The OT was all Willmar. Previously they had made 9-of-22 FT. Now the scored all 10 of their OT points on 14 FT attempts, while they also committed just one turnover. DeLaSalle made just 2-of-10 shots. Hannah Johnson was Wonder Woman for Willmar, her 14 points being the least of it. She was Willmar’s only reliable ball-handler, and without her sticky fingers Willmar could not have come close to winning this game. Cayle Hovland added 15 points and 9 rebounds. Carly Wedel had 4 points, 11 boards and 4 blocks. Elaina Jones was the Islander’s best player with 14 points, 8 rebounds, 2 blocks and 2 steals. She fouled out at 2:31 of OT. Gardner added 10 points and 3 steals. Olivia Travis and Nurjei Weems scored just 3 points apiece but combined for 22 boards. Cooper 58 Alexandria 51 Alex took an early 11-5 lead as 6-1 senior Courtney Gould scored 7 quick points. Cooper took the lead at 17-15 at 5:04 on a pair of FT by Jada Buford. Alex would tie it up at 24 but would never again lead. An Andrea Tribble 3 gave Cooper a 27-24 lead at halftime. The lead expanded to double digits at 43-33 at 9:08 of the 2nd on another Tribble 3. Alex got back within one at 43-42 on a 2+1 by Gould, but Cooper quickly pushed the lead back up into double figures and won 58-51. “Cooper was #1 for a reason,” said Alex coach Wendy Kohler. “We just wanted to settle in and get comfortable. And I thought we did that, but it was a tough draw right away. The difference was that Cooper made plays. They were the better team.” Cooper won with their “special teams”—that is, with 2nd chance points and points off turnovers. Cooper scored 25 points on 21 offensive boards, and scored 26 points off 26 Alexandria turnovers. Alex scored 14 2nd chancers and 13 points off turnovers. The game remained close because of Cooper’s 31 percent FG shooting and 57 percent on FT, while Alex shot 40 and 71 percent. Jada Buford scored 20; Tribble, a freshman, 18; and junior Aja Wheeler 11 for Cooper. Gould scored 15 and point guard Kaye Paschka 10 for Alex. Northfield 49 Mankato West 44 Big 9 rivals Northfield and West were playing for the 3rd time, and so the 2 teams knew one another and their tendencies only too well. So whatever either team tried to do, there was usually somebody standing in their way. “We were super-familiar with them,” Northfield guard Grace Touchette said, “and they knew us pretty well. It’s tough to play somebody that knows you that well.” The Raiders knew that they enjoyed a 3½” height advantage per position, and they had some success pushing the ball inside. 6-3 senior post Annika Hoff and 6-0 junior forward Rachel Kelly scored 22 points between them on 8-of-15 shooting, and that was the difference. Northfield scored 28 points in the paint, Mankato West 18. “They were shutting down our guard game,” Touchette said, “they were overplaying us on the perimeter. So we had to get some reversals and get it inside so our posts could score.” Meanwhile, the Scarlets’ guards hounded Touchette, the Raiders leading scorer for the season. She finished with 9 points on 2-of-7 shots and fouled out for the 1st time since 7th grade, she told us later. “I can’t even remember the last time I did that.” Mankato guards sophomore Holly Wiste and junior Ashley Gustavson scored 15 of their 29 points on 3s. Meanwhile, 8th grader Lani Schoper guarded Touchette much of the way. “She’s a good defender,” Grace said. “She gets me with my 1st move, then sticks with me on my counter. Usually by then they’re starting to back off a little bit, but she sticks with me the whole time.”