The Week That Was #10: The best of sections

Here we are, in the heart of the season’s stretch run, and it’s starting to get good. There’s just something about the first week of sections that is a whole lot of fun as teams jockey for position, underdogs stage the occasional upset, and we see which players can deliver when it matters most. This time around it is a little different of course, with restricted viewing and a whole lot of unusual variables impacting things, but there was plenty of fun regardless. Here’s our recap of The Week That Was #10, the opening round of the 2021 postseason. WHAT WE WATCHED We only attended one live game this week – Benilde-St. Margaret’s win over Richfield on Wednesday – but we watched 19 contests in all, including a half dozen on Saturday. That’s the most games we have seen in a week all season, and the most on a single day since the COVID-driven demise of the one-day showcase events. <ul> <li>Monday – Visitation vs St. Anthony, Cass Lake-Bena vs Mountain Iron-Buhl</li> <li>Tuesday – Lakeville South vs Northfield, Rockford vs Breck, Prior Lake vs Shakopee</li> <li>Wednesday – Richfield vs Benilde-St. Margaret’s, Central Minnesota Christian vs Sleepy Eye, Eastview vs Eagan</li> <li>Thursday – Pillager vs Mesabi East, Hutchinson vs Mankato East, Caledonia vs St. Charles</li> <li>Friday – Eden Prairie vs Minnetonka, Shakopee vs Chaska</li> <li>Saturday – Como Park vs Simley, Andover vs Anoka, Champlin Park vs Park Center, Lakeville North vs Eastview, Lake City vs Dover-Eyota, Stewartville vs Rochester Lourdes</li> </ul> GAME OF THE WEEK Minnetonka vs Eden Prairie Minnetonka has raised its level of play this season thanks in no small part to the addition of point guard [player_tooltip player_id="12727" first="Kiani" last="Lockett"], a transfer from DeLaSalle. The top-10 junior has had a stellar year, but with the season on the line in the waning moments of the Skippers section quarterfinal meeting with Eden Prairie on Friday night, all Lockett could do was sit and watch. That’s because Kiani had fouled out midway through the second half thanks largely to some overzealous officiating that plagued the contest from start to finish. What she witnessed from the sidelines was a collective resurgence by her teammates that helped the Skippers overcome an 8-point halftime deficit to eliminate Eden Prairie by a score of 57-52. ‘Tonka was cold as ice in the first half, and just couldn’t seem to get anything going. Every time they would get a sniff of momentum, Eden Prairie would knock down another shot and douse the potential fire. After the break, however, the shots began to fall and the Skippers rallied, eventually tying the game 41-41 on Lockett’s 3-pointer from the corner. With under three minutes left, and things all knotted up at 49, senior Ellah Durkee buried a three-pointer to put the Skippers ahead. Down the stretch junior [player_tooltip player_id="57907" first="Desiree" last="Ware"] (Alabama-Birmingham) and freshman [player_tooltip player_id="215958" first="Tori" last="McKinney"] made one big play after another, and freshman [player_tooltip player_id="178260" first="Emma" last="Dasovich"] pounded the boards inside. Ware made 5 of 6 free throw attempts in the final minute to seal the deal for Minnetonka, which had finished the game on a 16-5 run. Lockett still ended the night as the Skippers’ leading scorer with 14 while Dasovich totaled 12 points, 12 rebounds, 3 assists, a block and a steal. Durkee, who has been outstanding off the bench all season, finished with 11 points. Their reward for an impressive comeback is a section 2AAAA championship game this Thursday against #1-seeded Chaska. UPSET OF THE WEEK #8 Rochester Lourdes vs #1 Stewartville The Stewartville Tigers have had an excellent season, having won all 19 games entering Saturday night’s section encounter with Rochester Lourdes. Riding high, and playing in front of a raucous crowd on their home floor, the top-seeded Tigers were ready to advance in section 1AA, one of the state’s toughest brackets. Except that’s not what happened. Using a slow-it-down and grind-it-out approach to the encounter, Lourdes sucked the life out of the Stewartville offense step by methodical step. By the time the game’s midway point had been reached, word was filtering out across Southeastern Minnesota that Stewie was down 10 and not looking good. I suspect most folks, myself included, thought the high-flying Tigers would regain control of the game after the break and pull off the comeback. That didn’t happen, either. Instead, Lourdes quickly grew the margin to 15, milked the clock, fended off the inevitable Stewartville rally, and made 7 of 8 free throws in the final minute to seal a 52-44 victory that sent the Tiger faithful home in stunned silence. Led by junior [player_tooltip player_id="109125" first="CJ" last="Adamson"], and sophomores [player_tooltip player_id="186116" first="Ella" last="Hopkins"], [player_tooltip player_id="108335" first="Vivica" last="Bretton"] and [player_tooltip player_id="148325" first="Emily" last="Bowron"], the Eagles moved on to the next round where they will face #4 Goodhue in the semifinals on Tuesday. PLAYER(S) OF THE WEEK [player_tooltip player_id="57908" first="Kaylynn" last="Asberry"] & [player_tooltip player_id="57914" first="Ronnie" last="Porter"], Como Park Como Park has been quietly throttling one opponent after another in the St. Paul City Conference for the past few weeks. Unable to compete beyond the borders of the Saintly City due to the District’s COVID restrictions, it wasn’t at all clear how the Cougars would fare once they faced a real opponent in section play. Although this year’s Simley Spartans are definitely a watered down version of the team from Inver Grove Heights that played in last year’s state tournament, they are a quality squad that is light years beyond St. Paul Schools like Johnson, Harding and Humboldt. We need not have worried about the Cougars. From the moment the Como vs Simley game tipped off at noon Saturday it was evident that Como had come to play, and their two premier players weren’t about to let a little competitive rust put a damper on their day. Asberry and Porter were stunningly good from start to finish. They made big plays, nailed important shots, defended with passion and showed the type of patience and discipline necessary to dismantle a worthy opponent by a score of 79-47. When the game was over, Asberry had 21 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists while Porter had compiled 20 points, 7 rebounds and 13 assists. Although junior [player_tooltip player_id="109181" first="Shakyla" last="Walker"] had played the game of her life, and forwards [player_tooltip player_id="30186" first="Cloey" last="Dmytruk"] and [player_tooltip player_id="109133" first="Jada" last="James"] were also very good, it was Asberry and Porter who had shown just why they are both top-20 prospects in the Prep Girls Hoops Class of 2022. NEWCOMER OF THE WEEK Macy Birkholz – freshman guard, Mankato East Way back in Week #1 of the 2020 AAU season in June we told you about a little 2024 guard from the Minnesota Rise who would soon be emerging from a tiny Catholic school in Mankato and onto the AAU and high school basketball scene. Her name was Macy Birkholz, and there was just something about her energy, athleticism and super-fast feet that was highly appealing. Fast forward to last Thursday night when the Mankato East freshman entered the Cougars’ section encounter with Hutchinson as an important piece of the East attack, a 9th grader who has proven already that she can compete in varsity basketball. By the end of the night, Birkholz had once again knocked our socks off and played a huge part in her team’s 68-63 win. Macy made a series of crucial plays in the game’s final minutes. It was a Birkholz floater with 5 minutes remaining that tied the game at 57 apiece, a contest they had trailed by as much as 13 just a few minutes earlier. After that, Macy was a defensive dynamo, forced a couple of key turnovers, and continued to bring the heat on a Hutch team that was by that time reeling. Up three with 22.4 seconds left, Birkholz went to the line to finish the game off but missed the front end of the 1-and-1 opportunity. Not to worry, because she hustled for and secured the rebound, enabling East to return to the free throw line where junior [player_tooltip player_id="109139" first="Mackenzie" last="Schweim"] closed the sale. Now 14-5, 4th-seed Mankato East will play #1 seed Marshall in the section 2AAA semifinal on Tuesday. MILESTONES From the time she burst onto the scene as a precocious 8th-grader, we’ve known that [player_tooltip player_id="109776" first="Hannah" last="Hannuksela"] has been able to put the ball in the basket. On Thursday night, the Mesabi East senior reminded us just how many times we’ve seen her do that as she recorded her 2,000th career point in a section win over Pillager. That’s a heck of a milestone, but the UW-Stout commit is not the first one in her family to do it. That’s because her twin brother Hunter topped 2,000 himself just three weeks ago. Blooming Prairie earned a hard-fought win over Lanesboro on Saturday in the section 1A quarterfinals, a game that saw senior [player_tooltip player_id="109778" first="Megan" last="Oswald"] pass the great Taylor Hagen to become the Blossoms’ all-time leading scorer. Oswald, the 89th-rated prospect in the class of 2021, topped the previous record of 1,552 points. The Jamestown commit also holds the program record for career rebounds and steals. Wayzata senior [player_tooltip player_id="2090" first="Jenna" last="Johnson"] also became her school’s all-time leading scorer this week, putting up 65 points in a pair of games where she had to get the job done without her usual supporting cast. With [player_tooltip player_id="12715" first="Mara" last="Braun"], [player_tooltip player_id="108345" first="Brynn" last="Senden"] and others sidelined, the Utah commit scored 27 points in a win over Robbinsdale Armstrong on Tuesday. Jenna followed that up with a 38-point performance against St. Louis Park on Friday in a win that enabled the Trojans to advance to this Thursday’s section 6AAAA championship game against Hopkins. Johnson is the #3-ranked prospect among the 2021s. By every measure, senior guard [player_tooltip player_id="109777" first="Macy" last="Holtz"] has had a tremendous career at Plainview-Elgin-Millville. Along the way she has been one of the most dynamic floor generals in the state, establishing a reputation for consistency and competence that has earned her a scholarship to play basketball at MSU-Moorhead next season. She also captured all-state honors last week and is a top-30 selection for Miss Basketball. On Saturday, in what turned out to be her final game of high school ball, Macy put the cherry on top by reaching 2,000 career points. Every week we bring you a list of all the girls that we are aware of who have reached 1,000 career points. Most are seniors or juniors, but the occasional sophomore will make it onto the honor roll, too. But a freshman? Yep, a 9th grader has done it now, too. That would be shooter extraordinaire [player_tooltip player_id="178263" first="Laura" last="Hauge"] of St. Croix Lutheran, who reached the 1,000-point mark in a section win over South St. Paul on Saturday. Hauge is the 3rd-ranked prospect in the class of 2024. She joins her senior teammate [player_tooltip player_id="109772" first="Makenna" last="Moon"], who also reached 1,000 this week. Laura’s sister [player_tooltip player_id="109780" first="Lucia" last="Hauge"] and their teammate [player_tooltip player_id="109786" first="Juel" last="Skrien"] both reached 1,000 this year, as well. By the way, Laura now has 210 three-pointers in three seasons. We have a feeling she’s going to break a few more records at the West St. Paul school before she’s all done. One late addition to the ranks of 1,000-point scorers is junior [player_tooltip player_id="12749" first="Champ" last="Danso"] of Simley. Finally, we have a coaching milestone to mention, as well. The honoree is Dan Woods of Holy Angels, who notched his 500th win this week. Top photo: Sophomore post [player_tooltip player_id="186116" first="Ella" last="Hopkins"] made an impact at the Prep Girls Hoops Top 250 Expo last fall. On Saturday she played a crucial role as her Rochester Lourdes Eagles knocked #1 seed Stewartville out of the postseason.