Park Center stuns favored Centennial in the Game of the Week

Grant McGinnis March 4, 2018 @ 10:00 PM

When you talk about Park Center freshman Adalia McKenzie, it's difficult not to focus on her ultra-fast feet, which are probably her greatest asset. On Saturday afternoon, it became obvious that McKenzie's oversized heart might be what ultimately propels her to big-time college basketball. The 5'10 guard put on an epic display of effort, intensity and will to win, an heroic combination of rebounding, scoring and defense that led Park Center to an overtime upset of top-seeded Centennial in the Game of the Week. The final score was 81-76. "It feels so great!" said McKenzie. "I am so excited and full of joy right now." One of the more interested observers in the gym at Anoka High School was Josh Hersch, who will coach McKenzie this summer on his Minnesota Stars 2021 squad. "Wow!" he said when asked about what he had just witnessed. "I mean, everybody knows about Adalia the athlete. Today we saw Adalia the basketball player. She is an unselfish kid. She is a smart player. She scored 25 points but I don't even care about that. It was her willingness to work hard that impressed me. She outrebounded everybody. She just wanted the ball more and she went and got it. She just made winning plays." "Adalia was not going to be stopped" Park Center looked jittery in the opening moments, enabling Centennial to vault to a 9-0 lead before McKenzie's first basket of the game plugged the leakage. Park Center pulled even by the midway point of the period and began dictating tempo. Suddenly, the game was moving at a faster pace than Centennial was comfortable with. The teams played even the rest of the half. "We were struggling a little bit on offense. We just had to take our time," said McKenzie, who recently moved up from #18 to #4 in the class of 2021 rankings. "We were just throwing up shots. They are bigger than us, and they are a good defensive team. We knew we just had to move the ball and stay poised." Centennial has a huge size advantage over Park Center. On paper there is no way a mid-sized guard should be able to successfully defend a big, powerful 6'3 forward with D1 credentials. Yet that's what McKenzie did. "What she did defensively on Sara Stapleton was arguably the biggest part of the game," said Hersch. "We love Sara. She's one of the best Stars' players and she is truly great, but Adalia was not going to be stopped." McKenzie admitted that the matchup seemed daunting at the outset. "At first I was a little nervous because she's D1 and I'm a freshman," she said. "I just told myself that I can't play like a freshman. I didn't want her to get easy points on us. My focus was on stopping her and once we stopped her we could stop everybody else." Orth's buzzer beater was not enough McKenzie definitely did not play like a freshman on Saturday. She finished the day with 25 points and 3.2 million rebounds. Her fellow 9th grader – forward T'Naye Griffin – had an outstanding day, as well, raining threes from the hinterlands for 18 points. Senior Summer Blakemore was also impressive and and finished with 19. The teams traded baskets for most of the second half before McKenzie's and-one followed by two more free throws stretched the lead to 8 with 5 minutes to go. The Cougars roared back with four straight buckets to tie it. Things were deadlocked at 68 with 30 seconds left when Orth drove hard to the basket along the baseline, putting up a sharp-angled shot that bounced off the window and missed. McKenzie grabbed the rebound and tossed it to Blakemore who was fouled by Centennial's Lexi Mathews. That put Blakemore at the line with 7.7 on the clock where she made both free throws. Sydney Stapleton fired the ball up court to Orth who went hard to the basket on the baseline, a virtual repeat of the miss just seconds earlier. This time the ball kissed the glass and went in as the buzzer sounded. Overtime. Both Orth and Sydney Stapleton fouled out in the extra period as Park Center built a five-point lead and successfully killed clock in the waning seconds to secure an improbable victory. The Pirates will now face #10 Roseville, which surprised Champlin Park in the other semifinal. The winner will go to the state tournament.