Park Center & Benilde Tournaments: Top performers

The Park Center tournament was slated to have three of the very best teams Minnesota has to offer in one building but, unfortunately, Hopkins had to pull out at the last minute due to COVID protocols. Fortunately for us, the Chaska and Eden Prairie showdown didn’t disappoint. The tournament also featured St. Louis Park and Park Center, but they were only able to play one game each due to Hopkins' untimely exit. Below are a few of the standouts from the tournament. <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="108301" first="Kennedy" last="Sanders"]</strong></span>- <strong>Guard, 2023 - Chaska Hawks</strong> 1,000 points! That’s really all that needs to be said, but I’ll toot her horn a tad bit more. The dynamo point guard for the defending state champions averaged a sizzling 21 points over the two games while notching her 1,000th point in a big win over the Eden Prairie Eagles while finishing with 19. Spoiler alert: Sanders is really good at basketball. <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="12714" first="Mallory" last="Heyer"]</strong></span>- <strong>Forward, 2022 - Chaska Hawks</strong> Heyer led the Hawks with 24 points on Tuesday against Park Center, but it was her play on Wednesday against the [player_tooltip player_id="12732" first="Nia" last="Holloway"]-led Eagles that wowed me. Eden Prairie is as good a defensive team as I’ve seen this season, but Heyer went on a run in the 2nd half of that game that will be etched in the minds of anyone lucky enough to witness it. She hit 3 triples in a two-minute span that turned an 8-point halftime deficit into a 6-point Hawks win. She finished with 16 and reminded everyone that she, too, is really good at basketball. <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="12732" first="Nia" last="Holloway"]</strong>- <strong>Forward, 2022 - Eden Prairie Eagles</strong> Points don’t begin to tell the story when analyzing Holloway’s game, but scoring is a thing she does very well also. She is such a game-changer on both sides of the ball. Nia's ability to rebound, outlet and run the floor is second to none and it was on full display against Irondale and Chaska. She averaged 16 ppg in the tournament as her squad went 1-1. <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="12745" first="Myra" last="Moorjani"]</strong>- <strong>Guard, 2022 - Eden Prairie Eagles</strong> Coming off a knee injury many didn’t know what to expect from the sharp-shooting guard, but all that hard work to get back put a chip on her shoulder and I like it! She doesn’t mind mixing it up and  will take you to the basket if you play up too close. So now you have to account for the deep 3 AND her driving ability. Moorjani chipped in 15 points in both contests and is a great leader on the floor. She communicated nonstop on the defensive end in both games and hit a few big 3’s in the 6-point loss to Chaska, keeping her team in it until the very end. <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Benilde-St. Margaret’s</strong></span> <img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-372002" src="https://prephoops-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/pgh/uploads/2022/01/Mcgee-Wills-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" />Benilde hosted a two-day, three-team tournament that saw the Red Knights get things rolling with a very decisive win over Cristo Rey Jesuit 65-13 on Wednesday. Thursday they hosted Visitation and we got to see AAU teammates (Minnesota Stars) [player_tooltip player_id="296523" first="Kendall" last="McGee"] and [player_tooltip player_id="296528" first="Sam" last="Wills"] go head-to-head. McGee got the better of this match-up as she poured in 21 1st-half points on her way to a game-high 33. McGee showed why she’s a highly-touted recruit in the 2025 class as she had it going from beginning to end. Wills, another highly ranked player in the 2025 class, was equally impressive showing off her inside-outside game finishing at all three levels and being a force on the boards. She ultimately ran out of gas as she has to do a little more for her team, but finished with an impressive 17 points to lead her squad. The #1 player in the class of 2024 [player_tooltip player_id="177728" first="Olivia" last="Olson"] was no slouch either as she chipped in 24 points and started the 2nd half with her own 8-0 run to stretch a 9-point halftime lead to 17 as the Red Knights were never seriously threatened from that point on.