ANDOVER 37, ELK RIVER 28

A year ago both these Northwest Suburban Conference  teams made it to the state tournament. Indeed, Elk River was the AAAA undefeated state champ. What a difference a year makes. This year both teams are rebuilding/restructuring as the class of 2017 has departed. How much restructuring? The best indication is looking at the pp100s from last year to now. The Huskies dropped from a best of 87 to 56, a 31 drop. In five games I charted last year the Elks were over 100 three times, with a best at 108. The pp100 for ER sent folks to the ER with a plummet of 66. It was even lower at half time—below freezing at 25 pp100. It was warmer outside at 39 degrees.

One thing that hasn’t changed for either team is the defensive intensity. If you enjoy turnovers, this was the game to attend with a whopping 63 turnovers. ER forced 34. ER was more deliberate on offense with 21 seven plus touch possession.

The difference maker in the game was Andover’s 6-3 senior Lizzy Karp. The future Augustana player dominated the paint on both ends of the floor. Karp was the only player in double digits for either team. She had a double double with 18 points & defensive stops. Take away Karp’s production and Andover’s pp100 drops beneath ER with a 35.2 pp100. Karp had seven of the 11 Andover field goals. ER shot 27% inside, and some of the made inside shots came when Karp was nursing fouls (she had four on the night).

The game began with the Huskies holding a 6-2 lead—-after five minutes of action. It also forced an ER time out. After twelve minutes of action, the needle didn’t move all that much to 15-4. At the break Andover was on top 17-9.

At the widest Anover led 26-9 with 15 minutes to go. Then the winds shifted and ER started to chip away. Three straight scores capped by an &1 from Madison Leuthold cut the deficit to 26-16. The rest of the night the touches bumped up on the Andover possessions. Any momentum ER was trying to generate dissipated with Andover’s methodical attack.

The QRF came out today. I have charted 48 teams according to their listing. At this point I have charted 35 of the AAAA teams with 29 left.

Andover picked up their first win of the year after losing their first five. Elk River falls to 3-5.

Team	PP100	scorer	Distributor	D stops
Andover	56.1	Lizzy Karp 18	Alyson Cole 6	Lizzy Karp 18
Elk River	42.4	Lydia Haack 8	Ellie Maass 4	Lydia Haack 11

TRENCH PLAYER: Lizzy Karp