Here are 10 Player of the Week candidates

<strong>Kacie Borowicz, Roseau, 5-10, junior, point guard</strong> Borowicz scored 53 points as defending state champion Roseau won 2 games to win their 4th straight section 8AA title. She scored 25 in a semi-final win over Barnesville, then scored 28 as the Rams avenged a loss just last week to East Grand Forks in the section final. She scored 109 points in 4 section games overall. <strong>Heaven Hamling, Grand Rapids, 5-9, senior, point guard</strong> Hamling went head to head with Hibbing’s Abbey McDonald in a memorable section semi-final. Hamling scored 40 points, McDonald 30, and Grand Rapids advanced 83-60. In the section final, Hamling again led her team to the win, 74-54 over Chisago Lakes, with 28 points. <strong>Hannah Hannuksala, freshman, combo guard, and Ava Hill, sophomore, combo guard, both Mesabi East</strong> Mesabi East is one of just 3 teams to get to state by virtue of 2 upset wins. The Giants surprised Duluth Marshall and Proctor to win the Section 7AA title, as he young guard pair of Hannah Hannuksala and Ava Hill proved to be Giant-slayers. They combined for 44 and 45 points 2 games last week—Hill scoring 46 of them, Hannuksala 40. <strong>McKenna Hofschild, Prior Lake, 5-3, junior, point guard</strong> Prior Lake is one of just 3 teams to get to state by virtue of not one, but 2 upsets—the others being Byron and Mesabi East—beating #2 seed Eden Prairie 64-49 and then #1 seed Minnetonka 74-71 Friday night. It’s no secret how they did it. McKenna Hofschild went wild. She scored half her team’s points against Eden Prairie, 21 in the 2nd half, and she scored 42 in the win at Minnetonka. She also scored 41 in the 1st section game last week.) She is the only player to score 100 points in section play in just 3 games this year. The others, including Kacie Borowicz and Yokie Lee, played 4 section games. <strong>Elaina Jones, DeLaSalle, 6-0, junior, wing</strong> Jones took some time earlier this year becoming integrated into her new team, but as the year went by her impact kept on getting bigger and bigger. Now, in the biggest game of the season, Jones led all scorers with 24 points as the Islanders defeated #1 seed Mahtomedi 47-41 to return to the state tournament. Always a terror on defense and on the boards, she has now also become a slasher who gets open shots at the rim off the dribble just by getting to the rim too quickly for the defense to react. <strong>Yokie Lee, Byron, 6-5, senior, post</strong> As I said, Byron is the 2nd of 3 teams to pull a pair of upsets in sectional play. And, also like Prior Lake, Byron boasts one of the state’s most dominant players. Even McKenna Hofschild has never scored the 54 points that Lee scored last week against Winona Cotter. This past week, she score 32 in he section semi-final against Rochester Lourdes and 31 against Stewartville in he section final. She added 32 rebounds on the 2 games and blocked 8 shots against Lourdes. Bottom line: You get to see Yokie Lee in the state tournament before she moves on to continue her basketball career at Kansas State. <strong>Terra Rhoades, Minnehaha, 5-7, senior, shooting guard</strong> Concordia set out to stop Mia Curtis Friday night…and they did! What they could not do was shut down Mia Curtis and Terra Rhoades. Rhoades picked up all the slack and more with a 35-point outburst that powered the RedHawks to the state tournament for the 5th straight year and the 8th time in 9 years. That gave her a total of 63 points in 3 section games. <strong>Lydia Sussner, Minneota, 5-10, junior, post</strong> Possibly one of the best players you haven’t seen, Sussner poured in 34 point Friday night as Minneota defeated 2-time defending section champ Southwest Minneota Christian 82-74. That gave her a total of 82 points in 4 section games. Minneota returns to the state tournament where they won the Class A title in 2013, and finished 2nd and 3rd the following years. They then spent 2016 and 2017 in Class AA, but now win what is in a manner of speaking their 4th straight Section 3A title in their 1st year back among the smaller schools. <strong>Maesyn Theisen, Sauk Centre, 5-8, senior, point guard</strong> Theisen has the most modest stats of any of our 10 Player of the Week candidates, but also brings as much in the way of intangibles to the court as any player in the state of Minnesota. Even so, she scored 36 points in 2 games as Sauk returns to the state tournament for the 8th time in 9 years. 3 times—in 2012, 2015 and 2017—they have made it to the state final where they lost to Providence, Dover-Eyota and Roseau. This year the unbeaten Mainstreeters, with one of the state’s top point guards, figure to get the #1 seed and maybe that elusive state title.