Minnesota girls basketball state tournament: Wednesday’s quarterfinals action
Classes 4A, 3A and 2A opened play Wednesday. Tap here for game updates, stories and more from Williams Arena and Maturi Pavilion.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
March 14, 2024 at 3:28AM
WEDNESDAY
Tap on the game for a postgame summary or live scoring if the game is in progress
At Williams Arena
Class 3A quarterfinals
WEDNESDAY
At Maturi Pavilion
Class 2A quarterfinals
WEDNESDAY
9:35 p.m.
Crosby-Ironton navigates past New London-Spicer
Sophomore Tori Oehrlein, the state’s leading scorer, accumulated 33 points,15 rebounds and eight steals in Crosby-Ironton’s 63-50 victory over New London-Spicer in the Class 2A quarterfinals.
Crosby-Ironton (25-6) is seeded fifth, New London-Spicer (28-3) fourth.
The teams combined for 50 turnovers. New London-Spicer made 29 of them and shot just 25%.
Crosby-Ironton overcame the zone defense long taught by New London-Spicer coach Mike Dreier, who is making his state-record 21st appearance at state. He’s Minnesota’s all-time leader in coaching victories with 1,067 and is in his 46th season at New London-Spicer.
THEO FRANZ
9:17 p.m.
Minnehaha Academy cruises against Waterville-Elysian-Morristown
Minnehaha Academy scored the first eight points in the game and went on to a 75-39 victory over Waterville-Elysian-Morristown in a late Class 2A quarterfinal.
Addi Mack and Angel Hill took the game over before checking out with under nine minutes left. Mack scored a team-high 29 points, and Hill, who went over the 2,000-point mark in the game, had 26 points. The Redhawks (27-3) applied full-court pressure the whole game.
Alayna Atherton led the Buccaneers (19-12) with 10 points.
JOE GUNTHER
7:18 p.m.
Greenway scores 49 points in Providence Academy win
Minutes before the end of a foul-heavy first half, Providence Academy guard Maddyn Greenway knocked her knee into an opposing Perham player on her return to defense. She left the court limping toward the bench.
The state’s second-leading scorer showed no signs of her knee bothering her in the second half. Her offense early in the half helped Providence Academy take a double-digit lead, and she finished with 49 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists in a 94-84 Class 2A quarterfinal victory over Perham.
Perham (26-4) stayed in the game with quick passes to senior Willow Thiel in the post, challenging eighth-grader Ari Peterson in her first state tournament appearance. Thiel finished with 41 points and 20 rebounds.
The first half featured rugged defense and full-court pressing. Providence Academy (26-4) was called for 10 fouls, Perham for six.
“They called a tight game, and we had to adjust to that,” Providence Academy coach Conner Goetz said. “They were consistent in what they called, and we had to adjust our game.”
Perham cut Providence Academy’s lead to three points with less than three minutes to play, but turnovers became costly.
“We proved today that [Perham is] worthy to be at the tournament and one of the best teams in the tournament,” coach T.J. Super said.
THEO FRANZ
7:13 p.m.
Stars go on a run, push Albany past Rochester Lourdes
Kylan Gerads and Alyssa Sand combined for 22 points in a row, helping second-seeded Albany pull away from Rochester Lourdes for a 58-41 victory in the Class 2A quarterfinals at Maturi Pavilion.
The Huskies’ two leading scorers outscored the Eagles 22-11 to open the second half and turned a one-point deficit into a 10-point lead. They combined to score 46 points, 26 by Gerads and 20 by Sand.
Lauren Hust scored 11 points in the first half to help the Eagles take a 21-20 lead into halftime. She finished with 22 points.
JOE GUNTHER
5:46 p.m.
Alexandria’s three standouts take down Rock Ridge
Hadley Thul poses plenty of matchup problems. That frees up MaCee Linow and Lauren Beyer on the perimeter.
Alexandria’s trio combined for 58 points, leading the No. 3-ranked Cardinals to a 67-50 victory over No. 8 Rock Ridge in the Class 3A quarterfinals at the Maturi Pavilion. Thul and Linow finished with 21 points apiece, and Beyer scored 16.
“We have a lot of weapons,” Alexandria coach Wendy Kohler said. “Teams have to pick their poison against us.”
Thul, who stands 6-2, shot 9-for-13 and had 14 rebounds, four assists and four steals. Linow made five three-point shots, and Beyer made four. Linow also had five assists.
“As a team we are hard to match up against,” said Beyer, a sophomore. Thul and Linow are juniors.
Alexandria (25-4) led 27-24 lead at halftime before making a 15-1 run midway through the second half.
“We thought this was going to be a good matchup for us,” Kohler said. “We were able to get out in transition in the second half.”
Rock Ridge (26-4) is in its first year as a new school, the combination of Virginia and Eveleth-Gilbert. The girls basketball team is in its second season together. Junior guard Anna Westby led the Wolverines with 20 points.
RON HAGGSTROM
5:39 p.m.
St. Michael-Albertville turns back Rosemount
St. Michael-Albertville sophomore guard Cail Jahnke had a team-high 22 points and grabbed seven rebounds to lead the Knights statistically in their 68-57 victory over Rosemount in the Class 4A quarterfinals.
Important numbers for the defending Class 4A state champs, but Jahnke’s arms were the bigger difference.
Rosemount’s game is based on its never-quit style and its ability to shoot from outside.
Hamre knew keeping the ball away from Irish forward Ayelishka Bel-Teko Folly would be crucial for the Knights. So they turned to the 6-1 Jahnke and her long arms, and she played a game of keep-away.
“We weren’t sure how to guard Bel-Teko Folly, so we did a matchup with Cail,” Knights coach Kent Hamre said. “When you’ve got 6-1 draped over you with long wingspan, it made it miserable for that girl to get anything off. In the second half, they didn’t do that because they knew Cail was coming.”
Ja’Kahla Craft had 19 points and Abby Hoselton 17 for St. Michael-Albertville.
Rosemount struggled to stop St. Michael-Albertville’s transition game, allowing the Knights frequent good looks at the basket.
“They got out quicker that we thought they would,” Irish senior guard Ava Thompson said. “You’d look up and they would already have someone under the basket.”
St. Michael-Albertville has the added benefit of being tested thanks to its Lake Conference schedule.
“It’s really hard not to get better every night playing in the Lake. We’re playing tough games every night,” Hamre said. “That’s what’s been on these girls the whole time. There’s that added pressure. And added pressure is a good thing. You want that added pressure.”
JIM PAULSEN
3:37 p.m.
DeLaSalle shuts down Totino-Grace
On the island, DeLaSalle is referred to as “D.” It might as well stand for defense.
The No. 1-ranked Islanders had Totino-Grace out of sync from the outset, cruising to an 81-49 victory in the Class 3A quarterfinals Wednesday at the Maturi Pavilion.
Coach James Fassett’s squad limited Totino-Grace to 33 percent shooting from the floor while also forcing 16 turnovers.
“We played well defensively,” Fassett said. “It was a good two-half game for us.”
On offense, DeLaSalle’s balanced attack ran Totino-Grace ragged. All five starters for the Islanders (26-3) were in double figures, led by sophomore Madalyn Blaylark and junior Aneisha Scott with 14 apiece.
Junior guard Chloe Nuss scored a game-high 28 points for the Eagles (17-12). She made 10 of their 19 shots.
“Chloe is a good player,” Fassett said. “We were able to hold everybody else down.”
RON HAGGSTROM
3:26 p.m.
Minnetonka stands tall against Andover
It’s a combination that’s been tough to beat all season: Minnetonka relied on its superior height and wealth of talent to pull away from Andover 74-48 in the Class 4A quarterfinals Wednesday at Williams Arena.
The No. 2-seeded Skippers improved to 27-2. They were paced, as they have been all season by 6-1 junior guard Aaliyah Crump, who had 31 points. Gophers recruit Tori McKinney added 12.
Minnetonka broke out midway through the first half. After Andover rallied from an early eight-point deficit, Minnetonka shut down the Huskies, keeping them off the offensive glass and holding Andover scoreless for more than eight minutes. During that run, Minnetonka turned an 11-11 tie into a 28-11 advantage. Andover (24-5) never got closer than 16 the rest of the game.
Andover coach Blake Nichols said he expected his team to make a comeback, but Minnetonka wouldn’t allow it.
“There’s 28 years of high school basketball being played together here,” Nichols said of his players. “They understand that teams make runs and you need to be able to stick together through them. We just talked about controlling what we can control. . . . We made some little dents in it, but credit to Minnetonka and their ability to just make us play faster than we wanted to.”
JIM PAULSEN
1:41 p.m.
Stewartville shows it remembers St. Peter
Lesson learned.
Stewartville went to school after its last loss, by 31 points to St. Peter the first week of February.
The Tigers avenged that nightmarish setback with a 47-46 victory over St. Peter in the Class 3A quarterfinals Wednesday at the Maturi Pavilion. St. Peter was sixth in the final regular-season Minnesota Basketball News rankings.
“We are a different team than when we played them the first time,” Tigers coach Tanner Teige said, referring to that 71-40 loss. “We are playing so much better defensively.”
It showed on the last possession. St. Peter called timeouts with 12.8 and 7 seconds remaining to try to get off a game-winning shot. It turned out to be an errant off-balance shot in a clogged lane.
“We locked down defensively the last 12 seconds of the game,” Teige said. “We figured being down one and in the bonus that they wanted to get downhill and to the basket. We wanted to clog the lane up.”
Senior guard Savannah Hedin’s basket with 1 minute, 36 seconds remaining gave the Tigers a 45-44 lead. She blocked a shot 10 seconds later, leading to Audrey Shindelar’s basket and a three-point lead.
“I was kind of nervous,” Hedin said. ”I didn’t want to lose.”
Hedin finished with 15 points and Shindelar 13.
The Saints (27-3) pulled within one on senior forward Abby Maloney’s basket. She scored all 12 of her points in the second half. The Tigers (22-8) missed a shot before the final sequence.
“We wanted to get the ball inside, and we did a better job of that in the second half,” Saints coach Bob Southworth said. “It was a battle. There weren’t any easy baskets throughout the game. I knew it was going to come down to the end.”
RON HAGGSTROM
1:35 p.m.
Maple Grove’s last-second lob sinks Lakeville North
An inbounds passing play drawn up in the morning shootaround gave Maple Grove a 56-55 victory against Lakeville North in the second Class 4A quarterfinal game played at Williams Arena.
Senior Ava Cossette took the ball out and fired it toward senior Claire Stern, who made the layup as time expired. They successfully executed a play called “Iowa,” introduced by Crimson assistant coach Stacie Olson. The first two trial runs gave no indication of a happy ending.
In practice, Cossette bonked Stern in the head twice.
Panthers senior center Trinity Wilson, who led all players in points (17) and rebounds (15), said her team has a similar play called “Fudge,” which typically works.
The No. 4 seed Crimson (25-4) led 31-22 at halftime. But No. 5 seed Lakeville North (24-6) climbed back into the game. The Panthers grabbed a 55-54 lead with 29.8 seconds remaining.
It held until “Iowa” was called and run to a T.
“It was really nice to have that play in our toolbox,” Stern said.
The victory earns Maple Grove a semifinal meeting with No. 1 seed Hopkins at 6 p.m. Thursday at Williams Arena.
DAVID LA VAQUE
12:03 p.m.
Hopkins starts fast, pulls away from White Bear Lake
Top seed Hopkins barely had to break a sweat as the overwhelming Royals broke the game open early in a 66-39 defeat of White Bear Lake in the first Class 4A quarterfinal at Williams Arena.
Limited by early foul trouble, Hopkins senior guard Liv McGill received less than eight minutes of playing time in the first half. Not even the absence of McGill, the Star Tribune Metro Player of Year, fazed the Royals (26-3). They led 4-0 when McGill checked out and built an 18-6 lead by the time McGill checked back into the game.
White Bear Lake (21-8) trailed 39-16 at halftime.
DAVID LA VAQUE
11:38 a.m.
Benilde-St. Margaret’s rolls against Minneapolis Roosevelt
It was inevitable.
Benilde-St. Margaret’s was too tall, too fast, too skilled for Minneapolis Roosevelt in the opening Class 3A quarterfinal at the Maturi Pavilion. The Red Knights scored 25 unanswered points in the second half, pulling away for a 75-40 victory over the Teddies, a first-time state tournament entrant.
Senior guard Olivia Olson, a Michigan recruit, scored 16 of her game-high 35 points in the run. She had 16 points in the first half, and the Red Knights held a slim 33-27 lead at halftime.
“We just had to slow down,” Olson said. “It was our time. We’ve been here before. I want to go out with another state championship.”
The Red Knights (25-5) had a 5-inch height advantage per starter and took advantage of it, getting inside at will and hitting the offensive glass.
Senior guard Olivia Wren, the tallest starter for the Teddies (23-8) at 5-8, did her best to keep the Minneapolis school close. Two Teddies starters stand 5-2 and another 5-5; the Red Knights’ shortest starter was 5-9.
Wren’s two free throws stopped the Red Knights’ second-half run. She finished with 17 points before fouling out with 4:22 remaining.
“We played amazing in the first half,” Roosevelt coach Tyesha Wright said. “We fell short in the second half.”
RON HAGGSTROM
Class 1A quarterfinals
THURSDAY
At Maturi Pavilion
Semifinals
Thursday at Williams Arena
Championship games
Saturday at Williams Arena
Tournament brackets
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Tickets, TV
Ch. 45 will televise the semifinals and championship games starting Thursday. Quarterfinal games are available for a fee on NSPN. Tickets to the event range from $11 to $22 and are available at mshsl.org/tickets.
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More coverage
The Star Tribune will be publishing stories and other content related to these state championship games and more this week. Keep up by checking startribune.com/preps each day. Thank you for reading and subscribing.
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Tournament information
Six players plus head coach Garrett Raboin and assistant coach Ben Gordon are from Minnesota. The tournament’s games will be televised starting Monday.
