Minnehaha and Concordia to face off for Section 4AA title

<p>#1 seed Minnehaha and #2 seed Concordia used the same script, essentially, to win their Section 4AA semi-finals Tuesday night at Southwest Christian in Chaska. Minnehaha took a 23-11 lead, then lead 32-19 at the half. St. Agnes fought back to within 50-42 at 5:30 of the 2nd half when Minnehaha slipped it into high gear and pulled away again.</p> <p>Mia Curtis hit 4 3s and scored 18 1st half points, but the Aggies, giving up an average of 4 inches per player, managed to grab 11 offensive boards to 8 for Minnehaha, as each team scored 7 2nd chance points. Terra Rhoades and Avery New took over for the RedHawks in the 2nd half with 10 points apiece, while Adiya Sandifer scored 20 in the 2nd half alone to keep things competitive. And, again, St. Agnes out-rebounded Minnehaha on the offensive end of the floor, 8-4, and outscored them 6-2 on 2nd chancers.</p> <p>But, it wasn’t enough as Minnehaha shot 25-of-63 (39.7 percent) and St. Agnes 20-of-68 (29 percent).</p> <p>Meanwhile, St. Croix Prep stayed close—no, stayed even—with Concordia through 24-24 with little more than 2 minutes to go in the 1st half. Hailey Paup (twice), Ivane Tensaie and Sydney Hackett scored to give the Beacons a 33-26 halftime lead. Lydia Lecher and Tensaie scored the 1st 5 points of the 2nd half, and suddenly the lead was in double figures for the 1st time. Just as suddenly St. Croix’s shot selection took a turn for the worse, and they started forcing up shots. After shooting 11-of-25 for the 1st 21 minutes, they shot 25 percent the rest of the way. That was all the opening Concordia needed to pull away to a 58-40 win.</p> <p>Paup led all scorers with 19 points, Tensaie added 16 and Lydia Lecher 10 for Concordia. Seniors Ashley Cheeseboro and Olivia Witt led St. Croix with 15 and 10 points, respectively.</p> <p>Here’s what the 2 head coaches had to say about their wins, and about each other.</p>