Class A District Seedings, Important Games and Important Players

As the regular season winds down, Class A seedings are up for grabs.  District seedings and match-ups will be announced next Monday, so this week's games (including Saturday night's games) are the last to affect how and against whom each team will play against.  After doing some history teacher math, here are the match-ups that I see if the first round of district play goes chalk. A couple of notes; one, the top seeded team will be hosting the district final.  Two, Class A has seven districts, which means one team that loses it's district championship game will make it into the state tournament. (1) Lincoln Pius X vs. (14) Omaha Northwest or Norfolk (2) Millard South vs. (13) South Sioux City (3) Lincoln East vs. (12) Millard West (4) Omaha Westside vs. (11) Lincoln Northeast (5) North Platte vs. (10) Lincoln Southwest (6) Elkhorn vs. (9) Lincoln High (7) Papillion LaVista vs. (8) Fremont The results of the games of the last week's regular season games, along with district contests, will continue to add into each team's point totals, so there will probably be a re-shuffling of seeding going into the state tournament. This week's games are vitally important to a few of these teams and these seedings.  A couple of these squads (Elkhorn and North Platte) were discussed in my Class B column, but there are more games to discuss. <strong>Lincoln Northeast at Omaha Marian (Thursday, 2/13): </strong>Marian is on the outside looking in right now of the top 14, and a win over the Rockets would be crucial to their post-season seeding position.  The Rockets got a huge boost with a big win over Millard North last week, led by Seton Hall recruit McKenna Minter and her scoring explosion.  I also anticipate that Northeast will get six very important wildcard points when their two games against Lincoln High jump from a level 2 game to a level. <strong>KEY PLAYER: </strong>There are actually two in this game; the backcourt duo of CeCe Hacker and Aryanna Harrison of Omaha Marian will need to slow down Minter and the Rockets on defense while matching them point for point on offense to halt the Northeast win streak at six games. <strong>Fremont at Lincoln Pius X (Friday, 2/14):</strong> This is a rematch of the Heartland Athletic Conference title game from early January, where the Thunderbolts toppled the Tigers to earn the conference championship.  Both teams have gotten better as the season has moved on, and both teams will be desperate Friday night.  Pius wants to keep it's hold on the top seed in the wildcard standings, while Fremont would like to leapfrog a couple of teams and get out of the eighth seed in the standings.  <strong>KEY PLAYER: </strong>Like Marian, there are two key players for Fremont; can <a href="https://prepgirlshoops.com/player/charli-earth/">Charli Earth</a> and Macy Bryant at least contain <a href="https://prepgirlshoops.com/player/alexis-markowski/">Alexis Markowski</a>?  Markowski is averaging 23 points and 12 boards a tilt, so can Earth and/or Bryant move Markowski away from the rim and make her counting stats more difficult to get to? <strong>Millard West at Papillion La-Vista (Friday, 2/14): </strong>Like Fremont, Papillion La-Vista probably wants to avoid playing the Tigers in a winner take all game.  Millard West has been the hard luck team of late, dropping a buzzer beating heartbreaker to Westside and an overtime contest to Lincoln East by two points.  A win over Papillion would be really big for the Wildcats to move away from a rematch with Lincoln East. <strong>KEY PLAYER: </strong>College of St. Mary's recruit Hannah Leo has been on fire for the Wildcats, who have a very nice starting five but not alot of depth. She will have to step up her game against Morningside recruit <a href="https://prepgirlshoops.com/player/olivia-boudreau/">Olivia Boudreau</a> to give the Wildcats a chance Friday night. <strong>Omaha Northwest at Norfolk (Saturday, 2/15): </strong>With the Huskies loss to Lincoln North Star last night, Omaha Northwest dropped multiple spots from the first draft of the wildcard standings; that's how important one game can be.  Norfolk has had a late charge the last few weeks, going 7-3 in their last ten games.  This will also be Northwest's third game this week, which could help the Panthers.  <strong>KEY PLAYER: </strong>Ale'jah Douglas is leading the state in scoring, but it is supporting cast that needs to step up and make plays on Saturday.  For Norfolk, this could be a game of tempo, wanting to slow down the fast-paced Huskies.  Senior Anden Bauman (9.3 ppg) and junior Hailey Kleinschmidt (8.9 ppg) will need to score to lead the Panthers. <strong>Elkhorn at South Sioux City (Saturday, 2/15): </strong>This is perhaps the most perplexing game of the week that carries the most math with it.  Both teams have a busy weekend, with Elkhorn playing rival Bennington Friday night before heading to the Mini-Dome Saturday, while this game will be South Sioux's third game in three days; they play city rival Seargeant Bluff-Luton on Thursday and conference rival Omaha Gross on Friday.  Elkhorn is trying to hold on to a top seven seed, while South Sioux City is trying to escape a potential match-up against undefeated Millard South.  <strong>KEY PLAYER: </strong><a href="https://prepgirlshoops.com/player/kyra-fischer/">Kyra Fischer</a> showed her playmaking skills last weekend, but then the Cardinals were overwhelmed Tuesday night by Sioux City West, with Fischer being ineffective.  She will need to attack and push the ball against the Antlers to try and give the Cardinals easy baskets before Elkhorn can set up its terrific half court defense. &nbsp;