It is officially summer in the club girls’ basketball scene with the Summer Jam taking place over a variety of locations in the Twin Cities. This even usually brings out programs throughout the upper Midwest region. Sometimes high profile teams have battled in the Jam. The naming convention in this event is based on Lakes. The tournament format is bracket—win and you move to the right, lose and you move to the left. There are 382 teams across 8 age categories with 30 total divisions.
On Friday I spent my time on court five watching five contests, most involved the 17U (or future 2024s). That isn’t to say some youngsters were involved in playing up. The top of the food chain at the 17Us is the Diamond Lake division and I charted three contests there including what apparently is the #1 seed (by virtue of being the first game on the list) All Iowa Attack 11th EYBL. They put MN Rise 2024 Purfeest in running time in their win, the last I charted on the day 67-40. Their opponent in the quarterfinals on Saturday will be Sanford Sports 17 Black out of the Sioux Falls Area who topped Metro Stars 24 SSB 62-42. Metro Stars was without the services of Liv McGill of Hopkins who was playing ball in Italy on a shoe sponsored event. The Metro Stars is not without representation in the quarters, however. Metro Stars 2024 Szabla knocked off Crossfire Schuck 56-45 in the only Minnesota pairings on the day. The other two games were in the Gem Lake division, or the third tournament for the 17Us. In that division FBC North topped another Sanford Sports 17 team in the closest game of the day 49-45. Southern MN Fury 2024 derailed the Wester Iowa Express 65-36 in another running time game.
Generally, the pp100s were much better than the MN State AAU Championships. The last three winners I charted on Friday all were centurions with AIA topping everyone with a 109.8. They were helped by eleven 3s on 40.7% shooting. They were not too shabby in two point land either at 54%. Depth and balance are key ingredients in AIA’s success. They had five players over 100 pp100 and had all nine players score. The cherry on top was seven of their players had a dozen or more score for the 31 Club. The next closest team on Friday had five (So MN Fury).
There were two 31 Clubbers on the day—first up was Nicole Maenke with Metro Stars Szabla with 34. She delivered 23 points with a 143.8 pp100 in the win over Crossfire. Maenke was enjoying the comforts of home so to speak. She plays her high school ball at Shakopee. Doing Maenke one better was Sanford Sports 17 Black’s Katie Vasecka with 35. She racked up 20 points with a 117.6 pp100 in the victory over Metro Stars SSB. For those outside of South Dakota, Vasecka is a 6-2 perimeter player from Tea, SD, a southern suburb of Sioux Falls. She can handle the ball but is not the point guard. She has 3 point range as she cashed in on two. She sees the floor as she attempted 10 set up passes, tied for highest on her team. With her long strides and ball ability it was hard to match up for Metro Stars properly. Just missing out on the 31 Club with a 29 was So MN Fury’s Taylor Klement (Stewartville) with 29. She had a 160 pp100 with 16 points.
If you were measuring the “best” game by the losing team’s pp100 then the Metro Stars 2024 SSB team fills the bill, but only with a 72.1 pp100. Two teams (the ones that suffered running time) did not get to the 70s. The first two games of the day barely saw the losing teams scrape by with 70.5 and 70.8.
Dialing long distance seemed to favor the winners. All five had more than their opponents. A trio of players had three triples—Regan Juenemann (Duluth Marshall) of FBC North; Maenke with Metro Stars Szabla and Ava Zediker (Dowling Catholic) of AIA who had the best performance with 75% on ¾. She is headed to Creighton after she graduates.
The Summer Jam will wrap up tomorrow (Father’s Day). The quarters and semis take place on Saturday later in the day. Do not be stunned to see two EYBL teams in the title match at the Diamond Lake Division. That title matchup is scheduled for 2:20 at Shakopee on court 8.
Since this is published late these teams are still alive: Southern MN Fury and All IA Attack 11th EYBL.
GAME 1: Gem Lake (17-3) FBC North 2024 49, Sanford Sports 17 White 45
GAME 2: Diamond Lake (17-1) Metro Stars 2024 Szabla 56, Crossfire Schuck 45
GAME 3: Diamond Lake (17-1) Sanford Sports 17 Black 62, Metro Stars 2024 SSB 42
GAME 4: Gem Lake (17-3) Southern MN Fury 2024 65, Wester Iowa Express 36
GAME 5: All Iowa Attack 11th EYBL 67, MN Rise 2024 Purfeest 40