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MYAS State Tourney
Earned Respect!
 6AAA
..... three A, huh? 8 "A" level teams,
3 "A/B" teams and 5 of the top "B" teams registered to
play state. No matter how many times
John and I rationalized that we were in the right
bracket, we always finished our conversations with "I
hope we did the right thing".
Well, after watching our
girls play some very good ball against three A-level
teams, it was clear to everyone that we were right where
we should be!!!
We opened against the #2
seed in Rosemount. We played them straight
up and at half time found ourselves down by 6 points.
With our first possession we closed the gap to 4 points,
but quickly fell behind again by 8 points due to two
ill-timed turn-overs. We continued through
the second half closing the gap, but never finding a way
to bring us to more than 4 points again. In
the end we ended up with a very satisfying 6 point loss
to the eventual tournament champion!!!
Our second game was against
the #3 seed in Park Center. We came out flat
footed and the affect of the school trip to the ski
slopes seemed to have caught up with us.
Park Center opened up a 20-0 lead as we went ice cold in
our shooting with a 0 for 28 run before we scored 5
points before half. Park Center came at us
with a 3-1-1 zone and we quickly adjusted and
consistently broke past their pressure; however the
shots just wouldn't drop. What could have been a
substantial lead was a daunting 15 point deficit at half
time. And we moved on to a Friendship game
against White Bear.
In one of the most exciting
games of our season we found ourselves going back and
forth with the lead throughout the game.
The lead for either team was never more than 4 points
and at half time we held a slim lead going.
With their height advantage, they held a lead into the
last minute of the game. Opportune free
throw shooting allowed us to take a 1 point lead with
but seconds on the clock. WB converted from
the line to tie the game and after a turn over they
quickly scored to win a very tight two point game.
Even though our record was
only 0-3 for the weekend, we showed that we could play
very competitive ball against some very good teams!
We lost three games to "A" level teams by a combined 18
points!!! And found our competition ending
up as Champions and 3rd Place finishers!!!
We earned the respect from
our competitors and ... YES ... we did the right thing
by playing at a level four places higher than the year
before!
GREAT tournament, girls!!!
And congrats on a GREAT SEASON!!
Edina = DEFENSE!!!! = 3rd
Place!
 The
strength of our team is our tenacious defense; driven by
the heart and soul of our team. And this weekend
our defense earned us a 3rd place in a very very
competitive Edina Tournament!
We opened against a very
aggressive Forest Lake team. Sometimes you
take a win no matter how you play. And this was
one of those games. Our offense was
virtually non-existent in our first game early Saturday
morning. But our defense allowed us to stay in a
very low scoring game. With 2 made free
throws in the last 8 seconds, Forest Lake took us to
overtime. Our only made free throw of the
game gave us the lead we needed to hold on to a 18-17
win and allow us to move right in the brackets!
Our second game was going to
be a challenge. We were facing one of the two
Chaska 6A teams; who had just beat a very good Champlin
team 45-21. We had to play our best game of
the year and in the first quarter we did. 4
missed easy shots hurt us again and we ended the quarter
with a 12-1 score .... put those points on the board and
we would have had a chance at 12-9. However,
we played hard on defense and held Chaska in the 20's
until the final few minutes when we had 3 injured
players, 2 with foul trouble and 1 ill player on the
bench. So it was on to 3rd place.
So what team was going to
show up Sunday? We were hoping at least some
of our offense was going to show up after being almost
absent on Saturday. And boy did it
show up!!!!
We ran our basic three
offense sets and quickly scored due to some great
passing and shooting. We learned how to
adjust to our opponents and get into better position to
score. We attacked on defense and created
several turnovers at half court. We handled
the ball well, rebounded extremely well and EVERY player
contributed to a 12-2 1st Quarter score!!!
We continued to play hard, slowed down the pace of the
game, called off several fast breaks, killed the clock
with great possession passing and took the game into the
4th quarter with a running time game!!
Congratulations girls.
This was a well earned 3rd place (or "3nd Place
as our T-shirts show <G>) against some very good teams.
The team is still on track as we roll into our last two
tournaments of the season. On to
Brainerd!!!
St. Cloud 2nd Place!
Snow and a Blizzard were not going to
cool down our girls! We were coming off of a very
good showing at Maple Grove and the coaches wondered if we could
repeat our performances in St. Cloud!
We opened against a very good St. Cloud
team and again our team defense stepped up and we limited them to 12
points while finding a way to put 24 of our own on the board.
The blizzard outside continued to drop
snow, but we kept things sizzling inside the field house at St.
Cloud with our next game against Big Lake. We matched up
against their height, adjusted to an offense that was effective
against us at first, and again shut down our opponent by limiting
them to 9 points. On to the championship game!!!
Deja vu had us wondering if we were back
in 5th grade again .... we were in St. Cloud, we were driving
through a snowstorm AND we were facing our A team in our final game!
This time it wasn't a friendship game; rather it was for the
Championship.
We came out again playing great team
defense. We checked thier ability to drive the lane and
forced them to shoot the ball from outside. With less
than 3 minutes remaining we closed the gap to 1 point with them on
the line shooting two. The end result was a very
satisfying 2nd Place finish and it looked like the team was really
coming together nicely and had us all looking forward to the
remaining tournaments on our schedule!!!
St. Michael
Tournament
Stepping up
against the Best
3 games playing up one level
.... 2 opponents who are the best in their class ....
some lofty goals for the weekend ..... who could have
asked for more???
After seeing how well the
team has been advancing it was time for a challenge.
Our excitement of getting into the nearby St. Michael
tourney was tempered somewhat when we saw our opponents!
Anoka is one of the top 5 teams at the 6A level and was
coming off championships at Champlin and Elk River.
Albany won Consolation at Champlin losing their only
game to Anoka!
So we had nothing to lose
and everything to gain. The coaches all
talked and we just knew that we could be competitive
even at the level of competition we were about to see.
So we set some goals. We wanted to limit
each team to 40 points or less and we wanted to put at
least 15 points on the board in each game.
And boy ... did the girls
ever rise to the occasion and play great ball
Anoka is as good as their record states. They are
big, physical and fast. But we were able to
stay with them through most of the game and ended up
meeting our goals with a 39-16 loss. We
quickly learned that some of the things we can get by
with at the B level will turn into opponent's points at
the A level.
Next we faced Albany and
their aggressive full court press. Our girls
did a great job in breaking their press and ended with a
nearly identical 39-17 loss.
We wrapped up with a game
against St. Michael where we played very well but didn't
hit the easy shots, didn't adjust to an overly
aggressive defense, and ran into foul trouble when we
were already short a player; ending up with a 28-16
loss.
But, ironically, it was a
great weekend!! The girls no longer
should be intimidated by our competition, we learned
that we can play with most teams, and we gained respect
and compliments from our opponents!
Every girl stepped up and
had one of her individual best games in one of the
weekend's games and that was great to see!!
Maybe we didn't come home
with a trophy, but we earned a great deal more!
Great job, girls!!!!
Jersey
Numbers
|
Player |
Number |
|
Anna |
00 |
|
Haley |
2 |
|
Mattilan M |
3 |
|
Jenna |
5 |
|
Madison A |
14 |
|
Sydney |
21 |
|
Brittney |
30 |
|
Jordan |
32 |
|
Linsi |
34 |
|
Elizabeth |
35 |
|
2007-2008 Tournaments
15 - 19 overall record (15-12 against B opponents)!!!
* = Team
Scheduled/Paid
Tourney
St. Cloud Part Deux - A
TEAM
Effort
Results
We continued to play our best ball of
the season as we returned to St. Cloud for our final tournament of
the season. We've been lucky up to this point in
avoiding illness and injury on our team. However, the
long season caught up to us this weekend.
We opened against Brainerd in our second
attempt to beat them in two weeks. The plan was to limit
their star player to 12 points or less. We nearly
achieved that goal as she ended the game with 15 points and was held
to only 2 points in the second half. However, we saw our
poorest display of shot selection in this game and could not muster
more than 14 points in a 10 point loss.
So for the first time in a long time we
headed off on the consolation side of the bracket and after an eight
hour layoff we faced a very aggressive Madelia team in the nightcap.
We came out on fire and ended the first
half with a 21-6 lead. The girls were playing GREAT on
both the offensive and defensive side of the court. But
the long layoff between games seemed to catch up with us as we
slowly started to struggle, but came on strong when needed to finish
with an 7 point win.
Sunday morning we awoke early for an 8
am game against Edina. We played a great offensive game; not
just in regards to the final score but also in how well we handled
the ball, selected our shots and broke a very good full court press.
On defense we rotated through several full and half court sets;
including one we put in just before the game. Our
defense continues to be our strength, but in our last tournaments
we've seen life in our offense as well. Against
Edina we led through most of the game and ended with a solid 8 point
win to move to the Consolation game.
Already down one player we lost a second
due to a conflict in schedules and took the court with 8 players ...
which turned to 7 players when a head-to-head collision took one
player out of the game ...which turned to 6 players when another
turned an ankle ...which turned to 5 due to foul problems .... BUT
even under those conditions the girls played their hearts out and
stayed within 4 points with a very good Hutchinson team.
We continued to hit some of our best shots of the season and with a
made basket with less than a minute left brought the game to 2
points. We immediately put Hutchinson on the line and
after a miss and a Royals rebound brought the ball up court with less
than 10 seconds on the clock. An attempt to win the game
with a very good 3 point shot came off the rim and into our hands.
A second attempt as the clock ran out also came off the rim and we
ended up with a very well played 2 point loss in consolation.
It was a great weekend to wrap up our
regular season. In the last two tournaments we have gone
5-3 while bringing our scoring average up to almost 27 points per
game while holding our opponents to an average of 21.
Our shooting accuracy has also increased both from the field and
from the line.
The girls have really stepped up as a
TEAM these last two weekends!
Brainerd Tournament - Our 3rd 3rd
Place Finish!
 Out
of town tournaments can be a challenge with the distractions of
travel, late nights, restaurant food and water parks.
Keeping a focus on the games is not always easy.
Thanks
to all of the parents and players who saw the potential of playing
well in this tournament as we played our four early morning games
with very little of the affects of the weekend!
We opened with a flourish against North
St. Paul and quickly found ourselves with a 10-2 lead in the first 7
minutes of the game. Reminiscent of the Edina tournament
we found ourselves allowing our opponent back into the game and
scrapped out a 3 point win.
Our second game came at the right time
as we had the chance get back to our offensive fundamentals.
In a game that was over in the first 2 minutes, we used our time to
practice all of our offensive plays against a team that wasn't
anticipating our every move as we find in practice.
Our first day of the tournament was over early following a 45-10 win
over Park Rapids.
Sunday we rose early to face Brainerd in
our quarter final game. They have a single team led by one of
the most athletic single players we have yet to see on the court.
She dominated the game even though we continually put on of our best
defensive players on her and scored 21 of Brainerd's 27 points.
With the 10 point loss we moved on to the 3rd place game.
With our 4th game of the weekend we
started to see the affects of the weekend as legs tired quickly and
we got into a physical first half against Buffalo. We
led throughout the game but couldn't break the 6 point advantage.
Every time we stretched the lead, Buffalo would earn shots from the
free throw line and make at least one of two to eat into our lead.
At half time we led by 4 in a 21-17 game.
Players were transitioned in and out of
the game in the second half in an attempt to keep fresh legs on the
court and it paid off. Due to foul problems, Buffalo
fell back into a zone and we came out extremely aggressive and
actually started to see open players under the basket. With
some great passing and some of our best shooting we started to
extend our lead while holding Buffalo to only 3 points in
the 2nd half!!! That strong second half led to a 35-20 finish
for our 3rd 3rd place finish of the year and our 5th tournament
where we finished in trophy contention!
Thank you to everyone for the meals and
lodging!!!
Champlin Tournament - 3rd
Place!
The Champlin Tournament is
always a great tournament for two reasons; it's a great
kick start after the Christmas break and there's always
great competition!
This past weekend our girls
played the best TEAM BALL of the year!! The
girls continue to make strides forward in level of play
and we are truly gelling as a team.
We opened against one of the
best (if not best) 6B teams playing this year.
Centennial has not lost a game since the Roseville
tournament. We attacked them with a
ferocious full court press then protected the lane on
their end of the court. We fell behind, but
fought back to a 12-12 tie with 2 minutes remaining.
A basket on their end put us into foul mode and
Centennial put the last 3 points of the game up on the
scoreboard from the line.
Our second game was against
Maple Grove; who came out and scored the first 6 points
of the game. The momentum was on their side and
they were playing extremely well. We adjusted and ended up with a 25-14
win to put us in the 3rd place game.
Sunday we faced a very
aggressive Farmington team. The girls again showed
that they came to play and we opened up a 12-4 lead in
the first quarter. We pressed them and ran
our trapping defense and completely shut down a team
that had scored almost 30 points against a very good
Champlin team! They threw a 1-2-2 and a 2-3
zone at us and the girls adjusted quickly with some
baskets from the low post. In the end the girls took
home 3rd place hardware with a 35-17 win!
Another GREAT weekend of
basketball and I can't tell you how much fun I am having
coaching this team. We play better with each
tournament!!
On to St. Michael !!!!
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