For the week:

nine games; 16 new teams (2 duplicates), 161 new players, 795.3 miles

For the season: 60, 110 teams (6 duplicates), 3019.1 miles

Or to The Villages, FL & back

We ring out the old year of 2023 with holiday tournaments and ring in 2024 with fresh hopes and dreams. Some dreams have been altered. The final week of 2023 torpedoed unblemished marks. The Saturday Night Massacre saw five schools’ hopes of flawless seasons go down in flames. We are now a third of the way through the season. Some teams and story lines have been well established; some schools are defying gravity; some schools have yet to see their teams on the floor due to injury recovery. What awaits in 2024 is new records, new comebacks & rallies, and new surprises/resurrections. We are not even at the halfway point. Buckle up, there is more in store in 2024.

I saw a little of all four classes in the final week of 2023. Drama abounded with four comebacks, some with as little as 4.7 seconds left. Let’s get to it.

REAR VIEW MIRROR

TUESDAY: ESKO TOURNAMENT (BRACKET SEMIFINALS)

Game 1: Bloomington Kennedy 65, Hermantown 60 2 OT

The first game of the week was also the most dramatic with the game going to two overtimes. Kennedy used a three by Hailey Williams on an out of bounds play with 12 seconds left to tie it in regulation at 47. With 1:37 left in the first overtime the Hawks had a five-point lead. Again, Williams nailed a 3 from the right corner to cut it to two with 1:23 remaining. With 3 seconds left Macie Miller scored on a lay up to tie it again at 56. As in the first overtime Hermantown scored on their opening possession. It was #3 that put Kennedy up with a 3 from up top. On the very next Eagle possession she did the same trick from the right side and now it was 62-58 with two minutes left. Kennedy led 64-60 with 35.2 seconds left and with the ball. Hermantown put Kennedy at the line with 14.7 left. They missed both but Lailoni Harris grabbed the miss and sealed what slim comeback hopes for the Hawks existed. The Eagles converted eleven 3s on the day, five of those in overtime & with twelve seconds left in regulation. Miller led all scorers with 24. Williams had 18 for Kennedy. Olivia Johnson, doing her damage inside for Hermantown, had 21.

Both these teams had previously been charted. This was Miller’s second entry into the 31 Club with a 39. 13 of that total came in the overtimes.

Game 2: Esko 65, Foley 41

This game lacked the drama of the first. The host Eskomos, wearing white, broke free from a narrow 29-28 game early in the second half with a 15-4 run. Esko scored nine points off steals in the second half in their victory. They also were more effective behind the arc cashing in seven times to two for Foley. It was puzzling that Foley’s 6-3 center Ella Duevel, who had 11 points with 7:30 left in the first half, was limited in her post touches by positioning and by lack of feeds. Duevel scored all these points in an eight possession window in four minutes. Not counting the defensive rebound touches she was scoring on 11 points on six touches. She had 11 paint touches total for the game, six in that sequence alone. Esko guard Cairin Berger led all scorers with 17 points including three 3s.

WEDNESDAY: Mankato East 60, Red Wing 31

The Cougars had no real issues clipping Red Wing at home in a Big 9 conference game during the heart of Holiday tournament week. RW actually led 7-5 but then hit a brick wall. They suffered through nine possessions while the host Cougars ripped through 16 unanswered points. With 3:30 remaining in the first half East had enough on the scoreboard to bank this game.

THURSDAY:

Game 1: Fridley 68, Totino-Grace 58 (Hill-Murray quarterfinal)

The battle of Moore Lake took place in Maplewood and the Tigers knocked off the unbeaten Eagles and overcame a slow start to get it done. The one-two punch of Tiger guards Brandi Washington and Aubrey Cochran-Starr delivered 51 points (26/25). Those were the two highest scoring performances for the entire week as well. What made this game fascinating was TG held a 23-12 lead with 5:30 left in the first half. Fridley finished the half with a 17-5 kick including a 3 on their last possession by Washington. The Tigers then scored the first seven points to open the second half, a whopping 24-5 smack down. The Eagles were grounded and could not close the gap. One Eagle did soar. Maria Radabaugh connected a week’s best six times from 3 point land. The issue for TG was the lack of free throws—only two for the entire game.

Game 2: Park Center 59, Owatonna 58 (Park Center)

Park Center trailed by four with 4.7 seconds left and the ball at the opposite baseline. Lyric Singleton drove the length of the court and was fouled on the layup and completed the and one. Only 2.7 ticks were left. A deflection—2.4 left. PC’s Jaliyah Diggs was knocked to the ground and the refs (and the gym) obviously all saw it. The Owatonna player pleaded with the ref that there was a jersey grab. It is always the retaliation, and in this case blatant and violent, that is noticed. Singleton led the way for the Pirates with 16 which included 3/6 from beyond the arc. Singleton was forced to the bench early with two quick fouls. That affected the Pirate rhythm. The Huskies Morgan Fisher led all players with 20 points.

FRIDAY:

Game 1: Cass Lake-Bena 71, Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa 45 (Granite City)

Cass Lake-Bena rolled over BBE in a battle of teams that have been in the state in recent years. CLB doubled up BBE at half 34-17. It was a fine day for Gabby Fineday who led the Panthers with 21. BBE’s Brooklyn Fischer topped that with 22, but she did not have the support that Fineday enjoyed. BBE also had turnover issues coughing the ball up every 10.13 touches. Fineday alone had seven steals.

Jaguar assistant coach Paul Lindsey will be leaving soon for an eleven month coaching job in the Australian state of Tasmania.

Game 2: Cretin-Derham Hall 54, Two Rivers 43 (CDH)

After being upset the previous day by Visitation, a team without a win until then this season, host Cretin-Derham Hall took down Two Rivers in the second round of the CDH event. This was not bracketed, but a predetermined schedule. This game was important for section 3AAA seeding as well. The game featured the top 31 Club performance with senior Lauren Bengtson making the 41 Club with a 42. She did it with 22 points, nine distributions and eleven d stops. CDH took advantage of spotty guard play forcing a turnover every 11.08 Two River touches. TR had the tallest line up with 6-4 Gabrielle Kirchner. But it was sister Isabelle that led the Warriors with 19 points including 4/8 from 3s.

SATURDAY: Both at Granite City

Game 1: Minnewaska 49, Southwest Christian 41

The Lakers held on to defeat the Stars. SWC rallied from an eleven-point deficit with 6:14 left in the game. They had an 11-1 burst to close to 40-39 with 2:13 left. The Lakers responded with free throws for their final nine points. SWC still was only down 42-41 with 1:24 left. They had a front end and missed but retained possession. They never got a great look.

With the shot clock in use this year I have not seen the “fouling up” situation like this. Waska attempted 21 free throws for the game to a dozen for SWC. The Lakers preferred to launch 3s. Neither side was gold behind the line.

Game 2: Holdingford 55, Pequot Lakes 46

The final comeback of the week was part of the Saturday Night Massacre. The Huskers trailed the unbeaten Patriots by six at the half. Holdingford was hampered in the first half with fouls to Addison Pilarski who always seemed to have three PL players nearby. That partly explains the hole. The Patriots extended the lead to 37-28 in the first few minutes of the second half. Then they hit a wall. Holdingford scored eleven unanswered points and took their first lead at 39-37 on a steal & layup by Madison Mitchell, who joined the 1000 point club for her career the day before. The Huskers then stretched out their lead to 47-41 with six minutes left. PL narrowed the martin to 48-45. In that stretch there was a big collision that left a Patriot on the floor. That seemed to re-energize PL. But they would only be able to get one more point the rest of the game. This was another “foul up” finish.

A LOOK AT THE: SECTION 1AAAA

School	Pp100
Lakeville North	127.5
Rochester JM	104.7
New Prague	82.7
Rochester Mayo	80.3
Owatonna	79.5
Rochester Century	78.4
Farmington	67.9
Lakeville South	50.0

 The first section to get completed is in AAAA to no one’s surprise. Section one is in the southeast portion of the state & metro. This is a bifurcated section with a South Suburban and Big 9 split. New Prague is the odd school out as the only representative of the Metro West. The metro schools have prevailed in the section tournament of late with the last Rochester entry coming with Mayo in 2006, a gap of 17 years and counting. Six of the schools have been to state. The two newest schools: Lakeville South and Rochester Century still await a turn at the state tournament. Three teams have won titles: Lakeville North, New Prague and Rochester Mayo. NP’s was done at the AAA level. Farmington was a finalist in the virus halted 2020 tournament.

Overall, the record is 3-5 when I have charted this year. Looking at the above list the outlier is Lakeville South. The Cougars won the Hill-Murray tournament dropping unbeaten Minnehaha. LS has found their stride. When I charted at Thanksgiving they faced Minnetonka and, like all teams facing the Skippers, were shellacked.

The average pp100 is a relatively healthy 83.875 (with an 80 mark the “average”) and two teams LN and JM reaching the elevated status of centurions.

Only two players, both from Rochester, made the 31 Club. Freshman Jazmin Daing of JM leads the way with 39. Taylor Clarey of Century is the only other entrant. Where are the LN Panthers? With a large margin of victory when I charted, LN players were not on the court long enough to pile up the stats.

At this stage I expect LN to move forward to state (again).

For the checklists I have one section done (1AAAA) and one conference (Metro West).

PP100S

Holiday Tournament week saw a miniscule uptick of 0.61 points to 75.73. The week average of 80 seems to slip further away. Winners were up slightly too to 85.64 from 83.3. This is the second straight week winners failed to cross the 90 bar. Losers also improved to 65.81, up 2.83, the best in the three categories. For the first time this season the competitive gap was only 19.83, the first sub-20. Two games were under ten points in gap with three more 13 and change to eleven.

All four classes were under the microscope. AAAA was the best at 79.6. AAA not far behind at 78.6. A passed AA 76.95 with AA a lowly 70.2. There were eight AAA teams this week the largest grouping.

Mankato East was the sole Centurion with a 105.3 in the win over Red Wing. They also enjoyed the biggest margin with 50.9. The Cougars traveled to Granite City and lost twice with Orono by a dozen and then Alexandria by ten.

The best game with the losing team pp100 was also the best game with the closest margin. That game was at St. Anthony on Thursday when the visiting Minneapolis Southwest Lakers hung on with a margin of 5.6 and St. Anthony notching 79.5 in the loss. That was ten points under last week’s best losing total. There were two games this week with margins over 30.

The “best” game with the losing team pp100 was Totino-Grace with an 82.9 in the loss to Fridley. The Eagles beat three of the winners on the week and were a whopping 15 better than the lowest winning pp100.

By far the most competitive game with the slimmest margin was Park Center’s miracle comeback over Owatonna at 0.2. The Huskies had the game in the bag with 4.7 seconds left and four-point lead. Just stay away from the opponent and make them chew the clock. You don’t need to pull rabbits out of your hat, they do. And the Pirates pulled rabbits out their hat to win. This is why teams need to understand, practice and rehearse for any and all late game situations. Both the “bests” happened on Thursday.

THE BEST THIS SEASON

Week	Leader	Pp100	All pp100
1	Minnetonka	122.2	80.18
2	Rosemount	138.1	76.78
3	Duluth Marshall	115.7	78.23
4	Lakeville North	127.5	75.65
5	Burnsville	88.2	73.14
6	Mankato East	105.3	75.73

31 CLUB

There were nine games and there were nine new additions to the 31 Club, up four from last week. Only one player was able to get to the 41 Club: Senior guard Lauren Bengtson of Cretin-Derham Hall was the focal point for the Raiders. Winners led 6-3 with members. Juniors led the way with five members, seniors and sophs had two each. AAA dominated with seven members. Fridley was the only school with a pair to join: Brandi Washington and Aubrey Cochran-Starr. AA and A had one join. AAAA was shut out.

Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday each had three join. Wednesday and Saturday were shut out.

THE BEST THIS SEASON

Week	Player	School	Grad	Score
1	Maddyn Greenway	Providence	2026	56
2	Tori Oehrlein	Crosby-Ironton	2026	68
3	Chloe Johnson	Duluth Marshall	2028	63
4	Jocelyn Land	Holy Family	2024	49
5	Livi Downs	Mankato West	2026	44
6	Lauren Bengston	Cretin-Derham Hall	2024	42

This is the second straight week the AAA has provided the top mark.

MILESTONES

Minnehaha’s Addison Mack scored her 3000th point vs. Hill-Murray on 12.29.2023 in the semifinal win at Hill-Murray. Mack is now the fifth fastest to 3,000 points in terms of games played (124).

112 – Kierah Kimbrough
116 – Megan Taylor
116 – Madison Mathiowetz
118 – Janet Karvonen
124 – Addison Mack

All these players are either from AA or A schools. Mack is the only metro player in that mix.

TOP OF THE LIST

Slowly chopping off the #1s in each section. Obviously work to do in the smallest class.

AAAA: .625 5/8
AAA: .625 5/8
AA: .500 4/8
A: .182 2/11

Looking at the top 10s:

AAAA 7/10 70%
AAA 7/10 70%
AA 6/10 60%
A 4/10 40%

QRF

The race for 200 is moving at 45.5%. Translation: 91 teams are checked off, 109 to go. Theoretically in six more weeks I should be at 182. But the early part of the schedule has multiple games on one day. Now it is more surgical. I bounced around the holiday tournament circuit with only one day spent entirely at one site and that was because Esko was the only option on December 26. The multiple options become limited moving forward. Only during tournament time could there be multiple options. I am still able to do two-fers in each game. At some point in February (maybe) I will be forced to do one and duplicates.

I am behind the 2022-23 pace at 10s, and 25s; even in the 50s. I am waaaay ahead of the game at the 75s and under. I am three better at 100 (62 vs. 59). Already I am past 50% at 150, last year I was at 44.7% at this stage.

I expect nine more to drop this week making it an even 100 in the 200.

Rank	Seen	%
1-10	7	70
1-25	19	76
1-50	36	72
1-75	53	70.7
1-100	62	62
1-125	72	57.6
1-150	80	53.3
1-175	87	49.7
1-200	91	45.5

 

Furthermore, looking at the entirety of each class, I am already near 80% of teams charted in AAAA. A lucky 13 await. There is an outside possibility I could see all the AAA teams too this year.
AAAA: 81.4%—11 to go
AAA: 48.4%—33 to go
AA: 16.5%—106 to go
A: 4.1%—141 to go

UNBEATEN

The field has definitely been winnowed with the carnage of the Saturday Night Massacre. Maple Grove, Albany, Minnehaha, Pequot Lakes and Hancock had their visions of an unblemished season vanish. Prior to that both Cloquet and Rock Ridge stumbled before an anticipated unbeaten match up on Thursday. Instead, it was a battle of one loss squads. Totino-Grace was another that was ambushed by neighbor Fridley in the opener at Hill-Murray forcing them into the consolation bracket. Crosby-Ironton fell twice at Granite City. Dover-Eyota lost to Winona. Sleepy Eye was edged out by Minneota. For the week 14 bit the dust.

Looking at the list below you might be saying “Metro Schools College Prep?” they are supposed to be 1-0. Technically undefeated. Technically on the list. And defying gravity.

Danger ahead….Watertown-Mayer is at Delano on Thursday; Pelican Rapids has back to back games hosting Barnesville on Thursday and then traveling to East Grand Forks on Friday. Hayfield sees Sleepy Eye on Saturday.

Was 23…..now 9

AAAA: 2 Minnetonka, St. Michael-Albertville

AAA: 1 Delano

AA: 3 New London-Spicer, Metro Schools College Prep, Pelican Rapids

A: 3 Hayfield, Braham, Fosston

STREAKING

The Saturday Night Massacre caused havoc here too. Two Vikings are alone in the smaller class. Pelican Rapids slips into the top spot at AA, the only class not in double digits. The top two class share the Crow River in common.

AAAA: 18 St. Michael-Albertville (7+ this year)
AAA: 10 Delano
AA: 9 Pelican Rapids
A: 11 Hayfield

ROAD AHEAD

The last of the five-day workweek—with New Year’s Day on Monday action begins on Tuesday. Saturday will have Breakdown events in four high schools in the Rochester area and in Duluth. Some conferences finally get underway with their races.

A key game starts right away on Tuesday with Minnehaha traveling to Providence.

SEEDING THE STATE

The Saturday Night Massacre casts a shadow over the lower classes. Things are upended. Who is beating who? Or is it whom? Undefeated Hayfield gets edged out by Goodhue due to schedule considerations. Hayfield has yet to play a top 10 level team. The Wildcats have played five top level games and are 2-3 against those foes. Their two wins in Granite City over Mountain Iron-Buhl and Crosby-Ironton grabbed attention. The Vikings will get a dose of stiffer competition in the next few weeks with top 10 level teams.

AA is a tight race. You need a three headed coin to come up with a clear leader as all three favorites stumbled at one point over the week.

AAAA

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

AAA

1. DeLaSalle (4)
2. Alexandria (8)
3. Delano (6)
4. Marshall (2)
5. Monticello (5)
6. Rock Ridge (7)
7. Winona (1)
8. Minneapolis Roosevelt (3)

AA

1. Providence (5)
2. Minnehaha (4)
3. Albany (6)
4. Crosby-Ironton (7)
5. Dover-Eyota (1)
6. New London-Spicer (3)
7. Pelican Rapids (8)
8. NRHEG (2)

A

1. Goodhue (1)
2. Mountain Iron-Buhl (7)
3. Hancock (6)
4. Minneota (3)
5. Sleepy Eye (2)
6. Mayer Lutheran (4)
7. Fosston (8)
8. Braham (5)