For the week:

Eight games, 14 new teams (2 duplicates) 131 new players, 831.7 miles

For the season: 79 games, 134 teams (8 duplicates), 1347 players, 4622.5 miles

Or to Port Angeles, WA to San Francisco, CA to back home.

It was a little bit of everything this week: north & south, rural and metro, suburban and city, public and private, games on and games off. The return of REAL winter was evident right from the start of the week. Travel back from Chisholm was plagued by slow going down to McGregor with snow falling and the roads packed with snow. It took an extra hour to get home. Thursday I made another switcheroo with East Grand Forks again getting scrubbed due to blowing snow in the area. At four plus hours that experience did not make me hungry to travel. Instead, I opted for Ogilvie, one hour away. Saturday impacted my viewing because a few teams bailed on the Kasson-Mantorville event because of blowing snow and dropping temperatures. It was no cakewalk home for me either, but now I am short four teams I was expecting to see. This week promises to be in the deep freeze. I will be curious to see if the schedule can withstand the stress.

REAR VIEW MIRROR

MONDAY: Mesabi East 55, Chisholm 42

The Giants came visiting the Bluestreaks on a snowy Monday and spoiled the celebration of Chisholm’s all time point leader Tresa Baumgard with a victory. Mesabi East (Aurora-Hoyt Lakes and Biwabik) took their first lead at 4-3 and didn’t trail again.

The 6-0 senior center Baumgard, who passed 1984 grad Judy McDonald’s totals of 2152 at Greenway, entered the game with 2171. She added 17 more for a 2188 running total. She was not the top scorer in the contest. You needed to look to a prophet for that leader—Alyssa Prophet of ME. The 5-8 junior ended up with a game high (and week high) 27. Chisholm starts four players in single digit grades besides Baumgard.

The Bluestreaks trailed 18-11 after a triple by Prophet but responded with the next seven points capped by an put back by Baumgard to even the score at 18 with less than 2:30 remaining in the first half. ME scored one more time to inch ahead at the break 20-18. The game stayed tight with ME up 34-35 with about nine minutes left. Eleven straight points opened a dozen point gap for the Giants over six possessions. The ‘Streaks could not close that margin.

TUESDAY: Minneapolis Roosevelt 57, Minneapolis South 21

The Teddies roared past South Tuesday at home. Is it a case of great defense? Or poor offense? The Tigers ended the game with a pp100 of 36.8, the fifth lowest total this year. South was only able to score seven points in the second half. Roosevelt delivered 31. Take away leading South scorer Anisa Longs’ 14 points and the caged Tigers only scored seven—for the game. I do not believe this was a case of great defense. True Roosevelt was more up in the business of South. To me South’s system could not free up Longs enough. Longs is in the top five of five % in a game so far this season rubbing shoulders with the likes of Mack, Oehrlein and Greenway (Cother of JCC is the other). All four of those players made the 51 Club or better. Longs did not make the garden variety 31 Club. Roosevelt, a senior dominated squad, had balance with four players scoring nine or more.

WEDNESDAY: Mounds View 53, Forest Lake 47

The Mustangs had a strong finishing kick in their win at Forest Lake on Wednesday. MV saw a ten-point second half lead (46-36) evaporate over the course of four minutes. The Rangers kept MV from scoring in that run of eight possessions while they added eleven to their totals. MV awoke from their offensive slumber just in the nick of time while FL, after climbing back into the game and taking a 47-46 lead with 3:43 left, failed to score again. MV scored on their last four possessions starting with two minutes remaining. Their one-two guard punch of Kate Roeber (19) and Bria Stenstrom (17) led the Mustangs in scoring and they lifted MV down the stretch. FL made sure MV did not get great looks from 3 land. MV was very effective when they did shoot in that zone going 5/7.

THURSDAY: Ogilvie 88, Hinckley-Finlayson 49

For the second straight week I abandoned a trip to East Grand Forks and instead opted for the nearby safer roads to the Great River Conference. This time it was to the Lions den for the second portion of a boy / girl doubleheader—with different schools. The boys were the opener against Cromwell-Wright. Then came the girls. This was the second game in the series with the Jaguars. In the first game at Hinckley Ogilvie squeaked by with a one-point win. Apparently, they got the oil can out in between games for there was not a squeak to be heard. The Lions roared to a running time win. They had a week’s best 115.8 pp100 with the starters blistering the way at 127.1. Ogilvie knocked down eleven 3s for the night. Ogilvie, who already had the game in the bag leading 56-38 early in the the second half, was scorching hot scoring on eight straight possessions (20-3 run) over the course of three minutes. Grace Heins, the all time leading scorer for Ogilvie honored before the game, continued her hot hand with 26, made the 51 Club (on the nose) and had a traditional triple double with 11 distributions. Kadence Pierce was right behind with 23 points and another 31 Club entry for Ogilvie. Amelia Arnold knocked down five 3s, all from the right wing.

FRIDAY: Holy Angels 73, Richfield 47

The battle of Richfield was held at Holy Angels in a private vs public match up in the first game of a doubleheader. As a “rivalry” game it started out competitively with the Stars holding a three-point half time lead. It still stayed that way at the start of the second half with HA up 38-35 with 13:24 left. The game exploded in favor of the Stars thanks to a massive 27-3 onslaught. There were no tourniquets to stop the Spartan bleeding.

SATURDAY: Kasson-Mantorville Showcase

Unfortunately, the weather threw in a wrench in the best layed plans. Marshall was unable to make the journey east to see Austin. Albert Lea did not venture north late in the day. Instead of five games there were only a trio. The first two games featured strong comebacks that fell short. The final game did not have any comebacks.

GAME 1: Winona Cotter 74, Hayfield 68

The Ramblers built up a 13-point halftime lead thanks to sharpshooting and observant defense. Cotter finished with a dozen 3s on the day, the most of any team this week. In the first half they held 2000 point scorer With 12 minutes left Cotter was cruising along with a 52-31 lead. After a Viking time out they scored 37 points the rest of the game. With 1:19 left Cotter led 66-61 after a 3 by Natalie Beaver. Cotter scored on their next three possessions to keep the Vikings at bay, including going four for four at the line. With 4.4 seconds left Watson made three straight free throws cutting the gap to 72-68. WC again responded with a pair of free throws to stop the perspiring fans.

GAME 2: Byron 70, New Ulm 67

The late charge by the Eagles came up short in a foul plagued game. Together both teams had 42 fouls called. Byron had 26 for the game. Even though New Ulm only had 16 This game differed somewhat with the margins early—it was tight at half with the Bears up 36-33. The foul issues soon raised their head in the second half. The key player in this scenario was Daviney Dreckman of NU. She was perfection from all shooting locations—100% at all three spots on her way to 21 points. She made all five free throws, all five 2s, and both 3s she attempted. Her issue was staying on the floor. After knocking down a 3 cutting the Eagles deficit down to 39-38 she picked up foul number four on the next Bear possession. That earned her a one way ticket to the bench. All this happened at the 15:13 mark. Byron enjoyed having her sit to the tune of a 22-7 run and the gap was sixteen points with eight minutes left. Back in the game Dreckman inspired her teammates and NU stormed back with a 14-2 run and it was 63-62 with 3:20 left. The problem was Dreckman was done at the 4:05 mark with her fifth foul. But Dreckman wasn’t the only key player with fouls. On Byron’s side leading scorer Kendra Harvey, who had a game high 22, also was piling up fouls. She exited the game with 52.1 left. NU cut the margin to 69-66 with a pair of free throws. Byron turned it over next. The Eagles were not able to convert at the line with 4.6 ticks left. The Bears made one more free throw right after for an insurance point. With 0.2 NU ended the scoring with an additional free throw. The Bear faithful were relieved the clock expired.

GAME 3: Benilde-St. Margaret’s 74, Stewartville 48

The AAA title game rematch belonged to the Red Knights, and it was not as tight as the March game. At half this looked like a replay of the first two games with BSM up 30-25. The Red Knights went on a 17-6 burst with four three-point plays in a sequence of seven possessions. Olivia Olson, back from her hand injury, started things off in that run with the first eight points on her way to a game high of 24 points. The offensive lack of success continued to keep the Tigers caged. Seven empty possessions after that point did not have the resurrection feel like the first two games.

This was the only duplicate game of the week. But really, with Olson out in the Alexandria game I charted, this was a “new” team in that sense.

PP100S

Thanks to the Kasson-Mantorville Saturday event the weekly pp100 inched over 80 for the week. But it took a massive effort of 91.37 to do it. Without that help the week would have been mired at 74.5, the second lowest total of the season. Instead week 8 finishes (so far) as number two. Week 8 was only 0.43 behind last week’s best total of 81.26. There were two Centurions with hot hand Ogilvie seemingly scoring at will Thursday over Hinckley-Finlayson leading the way with 115.8. Byron also cracked 100. Saturday saw four teams over 90. But sub 70s were also easy to find. Six schools failed to get to that standard. The lowest was the anemic 36.8 put forth by Minneapolis South in their loss to Roosevelt on Tuesday.

Winners were much improved getting to 94.61. Losers took a step back this week to 67.04 from over 70 the week before. The competitive gap? Not so much at 27.57. Two games this week ended up in running time territory With Roosevelt’s 61.4 gap with South the largest. But there were three tight games—two on Saturday that kept fans riveted. The tightest or “best” game according to gap was Byron over New Ulm with a gap of six. That game also proved to the the “best” with the losing team’s pp100 knocking on the door with 98.5.

The class race was turned upside down with Ogilvie’s efforts helping A to an 87.67 mark despite losing 1-2 for the week. Moving up was AA with 80.3 and finishing 2-1. AAA was nipping at their heels with 80.14. Big schools AAAA style brought up the rear at 74.1.

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
7	Fairmont	108.0	81.26
8	Ogilvie	115.8	80.83

This is the first-time class A tops the list. Every class has been on top. AAAA dominates with four of the eight weekly bests.

31 CLUB

With eight games over the course of six days there was bound to be an uptick in 31 Club members. It was not as much as you would expect however with eleven new additions. Only one game failed to produce a 31 Clubber—Tuesday’s contest at Roosevelt with South. The heaviest volume was the first game at KM on Saturday featuring two from Winona Cotter plus one more from Hayfield. Cotter and Ogilvie were the only schools with a pair this week. Of the eleven players two of those made the 41 Club; and only one cracked the 51 Club—right on the nose. Senior guard Grace Heins of Ogilvie made the 51 Club with a kjasr triple double of 26 points, 11 distributions out of 20 attempts, and 14 d stops—seven of which were steals.

31 Clubbers were overwhelming successful this week going 10-1. Seniors led the way with six entries, juniors provided three, sophs two. Each class had a member, but A led all with four. AAA and AA each had three. AAAA brought up the rear with one.

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
7	Rylie Cother	Jackson County Central	2025	54
8	Grace Heins	Ogilvie	2024	51

Heins becomes the first A player to lead the chart. She is also the fifth player to get to the 51 Club as a leader. We are still waiting for the first AAAA player to top the list.

MILESTONES

We added another 3000 scorer this week: Jordan Zubich of Mountain Iron-Buhl. She joins a pretty select list—of family members. According to the lists provided by Matt Pederson Zubich and her father Dan (Babbitt-Embarrass 1994) are one of 28 All in the family Mother/father and daughter/son combos. There is one Grandfather/daughter/daughter listing. There are two mother AND father plus daughter or son connections/

Last week I put on the matrix the scorers I have seen this year. After Saturday at Kasson-Mantorville I am now up to speed on the three 2000 scorers. The week started at Chisholm with their all-time scorer Tresa Baumgard who is over 2100. Saturday, I charted Kristen Watson of Hayfield and Olivia Olson of Benilde, the most recent addition to the list. There was a second all time school scorer I charted during the week: Grace Heins of Ogilvie on Thursday. I have both 3000 scorers with Zubich and Addison Mack.

And we finally have another milestone other than point scorers: Perham senior Willow Thiel got rebound 1000 in the win over Holdingford on Saturday. Thiel is also closing in on 2000 points with 150 left to go (1850).

TOP OF THE LIST

The top three classes are now over 50%; the biggest two 75% or better.

AAAA: .750 6/8
AAA: .875 7/8
AA: .625 5/8
A: .308 4/13

Looking at the top 10s: all 60% or better.

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

QRF

There are 84 schools left to get to 200, 19 to 100. It looks more like the top 160 list with available dates and the continuing flux of risers and fallers. Weather events could push this to 150.

Rank	Seen	%
1-10	7	70
1-25	20	80
1-50	40	80
1-75	63	84
1-100	80	80
1-125	92	73.6
1-150	104	69.3
1-175	108	61.7
1-200	115	57.5
1-225	119	52.9

The biggest fish left to fry? Maple Grove at #5.

AAAA: 84.47%—9 to go
AAA: 64.1%—23 to go
AA: 22.8%—98 to go
A: 6.8%—137 to go

With weather taking the toll this past week knocking out four games it becomes much more difficult to run the table. I am definitely ahead at the bottom of the list. Now instead of two-fers I will have to start peeling one off a night.

UNBEATEN

Metro Schools College Prep???? Still without a loss? Can you identify the mascot? Lions. They must be in hibernation because they only have two games reported (2-0). We now have single entries in AAAA and AAA. There will be no unbeaten team from A this season. There are six weeks left of the regular season; actually five for some class AA & A teams. Add in two weeks of sections and that leaves about 64 available dates.

St. Michael-Albertville lost to Minnetonka. We knew one would drop off the list. Fosston, the last of the As lost at EGF Sacred Heart on Thursday.

Was 6….now 4

AAAA: 1 Minnetonka
AAA: 1 Delano
AA: 2 New London-Spicer, Metro Schools College Prep
A: none

Danger ahead….Saturday is busy. Delano hosts New Ulm. NLS sees Sauk Centre.

WINLESS

Looking at the flip side. These 20 teams are searching for a victory. There seems to be more of these. It is hard to escape that downward spiral. I expect many will remain on the list until the bitter end.

AAAA: 1 Irondale
AAA: 2 Minneapolis Edison, Mound-Westonka
AA: 5, Albert Lea, Cannon Falls, St. Charles, Medford, Cristo Rey Jesuit
A: 12 Lyle-Pacelli, MN Academy for the Deaf, Immanuel Lutheran, Madelia, Heron Lake-Okabena/Fulda, Community of Peace, North Lakes, St. Paul City, Ashby, Ortonville, Cook County, Littlefork-Big Falls

Somebody is going to win….Cannon Falls sees St. Charles on Saturday.

STREAKING

Change to the top and the bottom of the winners list. All losing streaks cross two seasons.

AAAA: 13 Minnetonka
AAA: 14 Delano
AA: 12 New London-Spicer
A: 11 Ogilvie

Ortonville has the longest drought going at 38 games. Three classes are at 30+. AAA has the lowest totals.

AAAA: 30 Irondale 14 +16 last year (ly)
AAA: 14 Mound-Westonka 12+2 ly
AA: 37 Medford 13 +24 ly
A: 38 Ortonville 15+23 ly

ROAD AHEAD

Depending on the wind chill….the week opens with St. Catherine’s hosting the MLK Classic. The week closes with the HVL/TRC matchups in Rochester. All other days are standard one game events.

SEEDING THE STATE

A sprinkle of new schools dots the lists. Some alterations in slots.

AAAA

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

AAA

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

AA

1. Providence (5)
2. Minnehaha (4)
3. Albany (6)
4. New London-Spicer (3)
5. Perham (8)
6. Pequot Lakes (7)
7. Dover-Eyota (1)
8. NRHEG (2)

A

1. Goodhue (1)
2. Mountain Iron-Buhl (7)
3. Hancock (6)
4. Minneota (3)
5. Sleepy Eye (2)
6. Cass Lake-Bena (8)
7. Mayer Lutheran (4)
8. Ogilvie (5)