Knights v Knights, Cardinals v Cardinals, the last regular season week transitioned from snow and seniors to playoffs and a bit warmer weather. If it wasn’t accumulating snow, it was accumulating points. Madison Mathiowetz went off for 55 on Monday.

They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday is just as bad. Actually, the trip to Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s on Monday was clean. No snow down, not much back. Other games jumped the gun with cancellations and postponements. The real issue came Tuesday. I know several schools released early to get ahead of the rush hour delays.

I almost did not go to see the Monday game. Coach Teas convinced me to go and drove. Forecasts amp up the potential for misery. There was not a flake on the way down. The game was over and still no snow (at Sleepy Eye). We did not hit our first shy flakes until we were about ten miles north.  The snow was light throughout the rest of our trip. No sticking. Nothing plowable. Tuesday is when the storm finally hit. And then it caused cancellations. Luckily my team avoided that problem. We were caught in the schedule churn however. Wednesday we were scheduled to play Spring Lake Park. That was moved because SLP had to move their conference game from Tuesday to Wednesday.

MONDAY: SLEEPY EYE ST. MARY’S 80, LAKE CRYSTAL-WELLCOME MEMORIAL 69

Knight riders. One Knight was going to win and it turned out to be the hosts Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s variety. Both teams had 20 wins. SESM was riding a 19 game winning streak. Think about Mathiowetz’ 55 this way. Besides the speed limit, she outscored five teams I charted this week including one winner. Or think about Olivia Harazin’s 28….She outscored one team…..by 13. So how is Mathiowetz scoring? She was a perfect 11/11 at the line. She only made two 3s. That means 38 points came from 2s. Looking at the shot chart she was 3/4 on lay ups. Add in the restricted area points near the rim and it is 13/17. The elbow areas and free throw area she was 3/7. Once she established position she was not to be moved. Only six points came on rebound chances. She missed the first chance she had off the opening tip. 11 points (one &one) came on either steals and rebounds without another Knight touching the ball. Her longest consecutive scores came early in the second half with three in a row and as a result expanded a six point game (43-37) to a thirteen margin (50-37). SESM needed all her points. LCWM tried to stay close with long distance sniping with eleven 3s; Harazin had six.

If measuring games with the losing team’s pp100 this was the best game, not only of the week, but the year. LCWM had a 103 pp100. That is usually good enough for the win. SESM’s pp100 is 119.4, the second best for the week (Mahtomedi had a 121.5 v North St. Paul).

SESM was upset on Thursday, their next game, by Yellow Medicine East 76-74.

WEDNESDAY: VISITATION 73, CONCORDIA ACADEMY 42

The Blazers moved this game from Thursday to Wednesday, not due to weather. This fit my schedule perfectly since the scheduled Mahtomedi game for Wednesday was moved to Thursday.

Visitation spotted CA a six point advantage before rolling to victory. The Blazers subbed five in and out in both halves. Viz totally dominated the battle of the boards with a 66-40 advantage. That led to an equally impressive shot attempt margin: 92 to 45. The Blazers won the turnover wars 27-10. Concordia did win the battle of the free throw line with 26 attempts and 18 made. Viz made a dozen in 21 attempts. Leading the way for Visitation is freshman point guard Samantha Wills who ended up with 14 points, 13 d stops and just missed a kjasr triple double with 9 distributions.

SATURDAY: 3AA SOUTH QUARTERFINAL: LUVERNE 56, REDWOOD VALLEY 15

With a #1 v a #8 seed you will not see a thriller. Expectations were met in the battle of the Cardinals with host Luverne topping Big South foe Redwood Valley easily. Running time was not automatic when the first opportunity presented itself at nine minutes. Luverne got there about two minutes later. If you add RV’s shooting percentage numbers up, they will total 52. (FT/2s/3s). Nothing was higher than 22%. Luverne was 147. Defense was the name of the game with 34 turnovers committed by the visitors with RV having a difficult time negotiating the full court press.

The benefit of this game was that due to running time I was able to get home before midnight.

Luverne will give up more points in the coming games. I do not expect them to hold teams to 25.4 pp100. Kira John for Luverne had 14 points, one less than RV.

SEEDING THE SECTIONS

Here is what we know so far. One top three seed (a #3) is already out in 3A North. The victim: Canby to MACCRAY.

I have bolded the teams I have seen. As you can see the bigger schools have been checked off—100% listed in AAAA; 90.5% in AAA. Definite holes in AA and A with 66.7% and  a paltry 10.3% respectively.

SECTION #	#1	#2	#3
1AAAA	Rochester JM	Lakeville North	Rochester Mayo
2AAAA	Chaska	Eden Prairie	Minnetonka
3AAAA	Rosemount	Eagan	Park-Cottage Grove
4AAAA	Stillwater	East Ridge	White Bear Lake
5AAAA	Maple Grove	Roseville	Spring Lake Park
6AAAA	TBD
7AAAA	Centennial	Blaine	Andover
8AAAA	STMA	Rogers	Brainerd
1AAA	Austin	Stewartville	Red Wing
2AAA	Mankato East	Mankato West	Marshall
3AAA	St. Paul Como Park	DeLaSalle	Simley
4AAA	Totino-Grace	Mahtomedi	Hill-Murray
5AAA	Becker	Chisago Lakes	Monticello
6AAA	Holy Angels	Benilde-St. Margaret’s	Orono
7AAA	Grand Rapids	Cloquet	Hermantown
8AAA	TBD
1AA	Goodhue	Rochester Lourdes	Winona Cotter
2AA NORTH	Glencoe-Silver Lake	Norwood-YA	Belle Plaine
2AA SOUTH	Lake Crystal-WM	NRHEG	Maple River
3AA NORTH	Montevideo	New London-Spicer	Litchfield
3AA SOUTH	Luverne	Fairmont	MN Valley Lutheran
4AA	TBD
5AA	TBD
6AA	Albany	Sauk Centre	Foley
7AA	Pequot Lakes	Esko	Pierz
8AA	Fergus Falls	Menahga	Perham
1A	Hayfield	Kingsland	Grand Meadow
2A NORTH	Mayer Lutheran	Central MN Christian	BLHS
2A SOUTH	SESM	Sleepy Eye	Nicollet
3A NORTH	Minneota	Lac Qui Parle Valley	Canby
3A SOUTH	Tracy-Milroy-Balaton	SW MN Christian	Hills-Beaver Creek
4A	United Christian	New Life	Legacy
5A EAST	Braham	Ogilvie	Swanville
5A WEST	BBE	Browerville-EV	Nevis
6A NORTH	Underwood	Henning	New York Mills
6A SOUTH	Hancock	Wheaton-H-N	Parkers Prairie
7A	Mountain Iron-Buhl	Cromwell-Wright	South Ridge
8A EAST	Cass Lake-Bena	Fosston	Fertile-Beltrami
8A WEST	Stephen-Argyle	BGMR	Goodridge-G-G

31 CLUB

We bumped up the 31 Club to 71 this week with a 41 thrown in for good measure. There was one more 31 Clubber this week compared to week 12 for a grand total of seven. Monday was explosive with Madison Mathiowetz setting the standard for the year with a 74. That is the highest in several years. Carlie Wagner of NRHEG also reached that magical 71 Club in the state tournament quarterfinal win over Pequot Lakes in 2014. Mathiowetz also had a 161 pp100. She set up her teammates 14 times, but they only scored four times.

Any other week Olivia Harazin of Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial would be feted with an addition to the 41 Club, but this week and in the same game, is overshadowed by Mathiowetz’ exploits. She  had a 147 pp100. Chomp Danso of Simley made the listing for the second time this year. What is interesting in her case she had a 36 but her team only had 41 total points in the loss to Mahtomedi. Visitation had two entries for the week, the most of any team in their senior night game Wednesday against Concordia.

The best pp100 of any of the 31 Clubbers belonged to Zoie Centers of Mahtomedi with a 210 in the win over North St. Paul. Centers, a guard, had 21 points in 10 possessions and scored a point every 1.86 touches. That is more along the line of centers, and not guards. Centers got her 31 Club score with only 14.6% of the Zephyr’s touches. Mathiowetz and Harazin got their scores with 32% of the touches for their respective teams.

STREAKING

Another week of no changes to the teams. There are additions to their win totals.

AAAA: 21 Rogers
AAA: 15 Becker
AA: 20 Pequot Lakes
A: 27 Hayfield

UNDEFEATED

Ditto on no changes. Alone on top of the mountain is Hayfield.

AAAA: none
AAA: none
AA: none
A: Hayfield

RANKED

With Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s check listed the A total is now 40%. Expect more in that class this week.

AAAA 100%
AAA 100%
AA 90%
A 40%

QRF

Officially done with 75. Seven to go for 100. But the churn always exists. With tournaments now underway there are opportunities that will be missed because of the calendar—games are on the same date, different locations. Right now, the biggest fish out there is Dover-Eyota at 76, one off the pace. I don’t see any team jumping into 75 or higher after that.

1-10 100%
1-25 100%
1-50 100%
1-75 100%
1-100 93%
1-125 80.8%
1-150 72.7%

SEEDING THE STATE

I have a few #2 section seeds moving to state. It is extremely rare when all #1s move on. Last year it happened in AAAA.  Don’t hold your breath on that this year.

AAAA

1. Hopkins (6)
2. Chaska (2)
3. Michael-Albertville (8)
4. Maple Grove (5)
5. Rosemount (3)
6. Stillwater (4)
7. Lakeville North (1)
8. Centennial (7)

AAA

1. Becker (5)
2. Paul Como Park (3)
3. Holy Angels (6)
4. Mankato East (2)
5. Austin (1)
6. Totino-Grace (4)
7. Grand Rapids (7)
8. Willmar (8)

AA

1. Providence (5)
2. Minnehaha (4)
3. Rochester Lourdes (1)
4. Fergus Falls (8)
5. Albany (6)
6. New London-Spicer (3)
7. Pequot Lakes (7)
8. Glencoe-Silver Lake (2)

A

1. Mountain Iron-Buhl (7)
2. Mayer Lutheran (2)
3. Hayfield (1)
4. Hancock (6)
5. Tracy-Milroy-Balaton (3)
6. Cass Lake-Bena (8)
7. Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa (5)
8. New Life Academy (4)