Postseason Report: Class B Wrap Up
Unless something unforeseen occurs, the basketball season has come and gone. There’s a lot to unpack from the last four months of hoops though and before we turn our attention to the AAU and offseason scene, let’s look back at…
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Continue ReadingUnless something unforeseen occurs, the basketball season has come and gone. There’s a lot to unpack from the last four months of hoops though and before we turn our attention to the AAU and offseason scene, let’s look back at the season that was.
The Best Team Won The Championship
This isn’t always the case when it comes to single-elimination tournaments – which is part of the fun of March Madness and High School hoops – but this year, it feels like the best and most worthy champion did emerge.
Langdon/Edmore/Munch was ranked No. 2 pretty much from start to finish behind Kindred, which lost in the Region 1 Tournament. A state championship game featuring those two would’ve been epic given the Vikings beat the Cardinals on their way to a state title the year before, but the Cardinals certainly didn’t take an easy road to their undefeated season.
They beat Grafton twice. They beat Thompson, Kidder County, Shiloh, Hettinger/Scranton twice, Four Winds/Minnewaukan twice, Velva and Carrington. They had undoubtedly the toughest schedule in the state and went undefeated.
Callie Ronningen wrapped up her senior year with a state title and another all-state honor. Kaitlyn Scherr finished her high school career leading her team to a championship. Morgan Freije emerged as one of the best players in the state. The Cardinals were elite from start to finish and there was nothing fluky or lucky about it.
Some of the best teams in the state didn’t get to the state tournament
This happens every year, but in girls basketball, it seems like there are generally less upsets. Of the eight teams representing their respective regions in the Class B State Tournament, six went into their region tournaments as the favorite – Grafton and Thompson would be considered co-favorites in this exercise.
Yet it could be argued that three of the five best teams in the state didn’t play in the state tournament.
Kindred was ranked No. 1 all season long and would have been the favorite to win the state title had the Vikings not been upset by Central Cass.
Thompson lost to the eventual state runner-up Grafton in the Region 2 final and the Tommies probably would have reached the state title game had they gotten to the state tournament.
And Four Winds/Minnewaukan was one of the best teams in the state all year before losing to LEM in the Region 4 Championship. The Indians have been among the state’s elite for years with the Cardinals being that hurdle they just can’t quite clear.
Throw in teams like Carrington and Kidder County out of Region 3 and Velva and Mohall-Lansford-Sherwood in Region 6 and there are some highly-talented teams that didn’t reach the final tournament.
That means there was an incredible amount of talent around the state. That’s a good thing. And a lot of those teams figure to be terrific again next year – so the field isn’t dropping off.
Looking Ahead…
There’s a case to be made for just about every team in the state tournament to be back in the field again next year.
LEM is going to have to replace one of its best players ever in Ronningen plus a really good player in Scherr. But they’ve got three starters back plus their best reserve and Freije could very well take the next step into all-state status.
Trenton loses its all-everything point guard in Kaity Hove but returns three starters in the St. Pierre sisters and Jacee Turcotte. The Tigers might not be silly dominant like they were throughout this year, but they’ll be good enough to win 20-plus games again.
Grafton might go into next year as the preseason No. 1 team (if not Kindred) because the Sieben sisters, Walker Demers and Julia Dusek are all going to be back.
Rugby is going to be a top-five team in the preseason next year as the Panthers turn everybody of note.
Shiloh brings back a majority of its core. Central Cass was one of the deepest teams in the state and returns a ton of key pieces.
Hettinger/Scranton returns all-state forward Sam Oase plus an excellent wing in Bailee Pierce.
Throw in preseason top teams like Kindred (Abby Duchsherer and Terryn Johnson both back), Thompson (Kenzie Hughes back) and Velva (everybody back), and Class B could be wild next year.