The Week That Was #5: Breaking records in very rare fashion

Very few players in Minnesota girls high school basketball ever reach 2,000 career points, so what are the odds of two players doing it on the same night? Consider the fact that the two players are also teammates who share the same first name and the feat gets even more unlikely. Yet that’s exactly what happened last Tuesday when [player_tooltip player_id="57939" first="Natalie" last="Bremer"] of Lake City and [player_tooltip player_id="109156" first="Natalie" last="Mikrot"] of Moose Lake-Willow River each gained entry into the 2,000-point club. That highlights our short recap of the shorter Week That Was #5, Christmas edition. <strong>MILESTONES</strong> Every week during the high school season we bring you milestone achievements from around the state – 1,000-point scorers, those who make the 500 career rebounds club and other achievements of the sort. Every so often there is a 2,000-point scorer in the mix, like [player_tooltip player_id="223913" first="Taryn" last="Frazer"] of Cass Lake-Bena last week. Even rarer, someone will reach 3,000 as [player_tooltip player_id="109131" first="Madison" last="Mathiowetz"] of Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s did a couple of weeks ago. This week it was the Natalie and Natalie Show as the Wisconsin Playmakers teammates each marked new milestones. <ul> <li>[player_tooltip player_id="57939" first="Natalie" last="Bremer"] is a 5’11 guard from Lake City. The senior scored 30 points in a win over Zumbrota-Mazeppa to top 2,000 for her career. This Natalie will play next season for Minnesota State-Mankato.</li> <li>[player_tooltip player_id="109156" first="Natalie" last="Mikrot"] is a 5’6 point guard from Moose Lake-Willow River. The senior also scored 30 against Barnum to top 2,000, the first player in school history to reach that milestone. This Natalie is committed to the University of Minnesota at Crookston.</li> <li>One other player marked a notable milestone this week as senior post [player_tooltip player_id="57929" first="Jocelyn" last="Plonski"] of Eagan notched her 500th career rebound. That’s remarkable considering she missed all of last season recovering from a torn ACL.</li> </ul> <img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-368997" src="https://prephoops-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/pgh/uploads/2021/12/Pratt_Hart_Hill-226x300.png" alt="" width="226" height="300" /> <strong>A COLLEGE TOUR</strong> It was a short viewing week with all of the high school games crammed into two less days than usual. We also traveled to Des Moines to see Minnesota play Drake University in a live Division 1 contest on Thursday. That limited our high school viewing to just three games online: Caledonia at Chatfield, Lake City vs Zumbrota-Mazeppa and Benilde-St. Margaret’s against DeLaSalle. Don’t worry, we will make up for it next week with 28 full games on the docket – all of them live – as we make the rounds of the holiday tournaments. On Monday we were at St. Thomas keeping tabs on the Tommies inaugural season in Division 1. They played their first-ever Summit League game against Nebraska-Omaha, which featured two Minnesota products in their lineup: 2020 graduate <strong>Lauren Frost</strong> of Park Center and 2021 <strong>Alexis Pratt</strong> of Stillwater. Also in the house in an observational role was 2021 post <strong>Sophie Hart</strong> of Farmington. Home for a quick Christmas break, the North Carolina State freshmen was kind enough to pose for a photo with her former Minnesota Fury teammates Pratt (photo left) and <strong>Jade Hill</strong> (photo right) of the Tommies. UST came close but didn’t quite get the job done, falling by a score of 61-55. Two nights later the Tommies made history with their first conference win. St. Thomas knocked off the University of Denver 56-48 in a complete performance. It was a well-earned win, their fourth overall this season. It’s a tough ask going straight from D3 to D1, something that has never been done before. Prior to the season I had predicted that the team might win five or six games the first year. They’ll be looking for win #5 on Dec. 29 against Division 2 Upper Iowa so we may need to revise our forecast before long. At Drake we saw a high-quality mid-major program that features Minnesotans <strong>Maddie Peterson</strong> (nee: Monahan) of Glencoe-Silver Lake, <strong>Anna Miller</strong> of Rochester Mayo and <strong>Taylor McAulay</strong> of Centennial, along with long-time North Tartan standout <strong>Courtney Becker</strong> of Fountain City, Wisc. Peterson is one of the best players in the Missouri Valley Conference and Miller is having an outstanding first year in Des Moines. McAulay is unfortunately out with a long-term knee injury. There were two Top 10 Minnesota sophomores in attendance, as well, as coach Allison Pohlman tries to lure them south. They had to be impressed with Drake’s ball movement, which is crazy good. They are a well-oiled machine and a program with outstanding culture. The Bulldogs took over the game in the second half, winning 77-63 and sending the Gophers home disappointed. <strong>INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCES</strong> It has been quite the week for [player_tooltip player_id="109164" first="Sadie" last="Voss"] of Jackson County Central. Despite struggling from beyond the arc on Tuesday against Pipestone – she was just 2-for-11 from three-point range – Voss finished the game with 39 points. That’s because she was 15-of-23 from two. In her last three games Sadie has scored 108 points. Remarkably, she is probably better at volleyball than basketball and has committed to play the v-word at Sioux Falls. [player_tooltip player_id="205310" first="Tori" last="Oehrlein"] is really good at several sports but, luckily for us, the 8th grader’s main focus is basketball. Oehrlein, who recently picked up a scholarship offer from the University of Minnesota, had another super strong performance this week in Crosby-Ironton’s win over Moose Lake-Willow River. Tori scored a season-high 36 points, had 16 rebounds and 6 assists. She is now averaging 25 and 13. Freshman [player_tooltip player_id="252379" first="Addison" last="Mack"] of Minnehaha Academy is also averaging 25 points per game, and the 5th-rated prospect in the Class of 2025 had another strong performance in a win last week over St. Louis Park. Addi scored 34 points to lead the Redhawks to victory. <img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-338522" src="https://prephoops-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/pgh/uploads/2021/10/131-Alexis-Rose.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" /> Among last week’s other top-notch individual performances... <ul> <li>Top 5 junior [player_tooltip player_id="108301" first="Kennedy" last="Sanders"] of Chaska, who has committed to Colorado, scored 32 points against Edina.</li> <li>Sophomore [player_tooltip player_id="304938" first="Alexis" last="Rose"] of Becker (photo above) had a career-high 31 against Monticello on Tuesday. Rose is a rising star in the Class of 2024 where she is currently ranked #76.</li> <li>[player_tooltip player_id="30162" first="Mikayla" last="Aumer"] is on a roll and had two more killer performances. The University of North Dakota commit had 31 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists against Chisago Lakes and 35 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists and 7 steals versus Hermantown.</li> <li>Rochester John Marshall senior [player_tooltip player_id="12722" first="Lilly" last="Meister"], who has committed to Indiana, had 31 and 13 against Albert Lea, which had 30 from Jamestown commit [player_tooltip player_id="109163" first="Taya" last="Jeffrey"].</li> <li>A pair of St. Thomas commits – senior [player_tooltip player_id="57928" first="Amber" last="Scalia"] of Stillwater and junior [player_tooltip player_id="108311" first="Zoey" last="Washington"] of St. Croix Lutheran – each had 30-point games last week.</li> <li>Senior [player_tooltip player_id="109179" first="Kate" last="Cordes"] of Shakopee made 9 triples in a win against Champlin Park, the most three-pointers by a Sabers player in a single game since 1998. The Jamestown commit totaled 29 points on the night.</li> <li>Top-5 sophomore [player_tooltip player_id="178263" first="Laura" last="Hauge"] of St. Croix Lutheran was also bombing threes as usual against Mound-Westonka last week. She went 7-for-13 from beyond the arc for 29 in the win over the White Hawks.</li> <li>Top-40 sophomore [player_tooltip player_id="178273" first="Taylor" last="Tool"] of Delano had the finest offensive output of her high school career on Tuesday. The 6-foot forward, who plays summer ball for Crossfire AAU, scored 29 in a win over Dassel-Cokato.</li> </ul> <span style="font-size: 10pt;"><em>Top photo: [player_tooltip player_id="57939" first="Natalie" last="Bremer"] (left) of Lake City and [player_tooltip player_id="109156" first="Natalie" last="Mikrot"] (right) of Moose Lake-Willow River.</em></span>