The success was enjoyed at home. The opponent was Lac qui Parle.
Look out for the mid-winter type of cold for the Thanksgiving weekend. I'm writing this on Sunday, which it appears will have the last mild temperature for a while. Good idea to take a walk today. Minnewaska Area will have another home game before Thanksgiving. That will be Tuesday against Eden Valley-Watkins.
The Lakers buried the Eagles in first half play 37-14. I like it when the West Central Tribune lists the point-scorers from highest on down. So we see three Lakers sharing team-best honors in scoring. Addyson Kath, Alia Randt and Megan Thorfinnson each scored 12 points. Let's acknowledge the other point-scorers: Lauryn Ankeny 9, Olivia Danielson 7, Sydney Dahl 6, Jayda Kolstoe 5, Aubrey Stark 3, Lauren Stryhn 2 and Norah VanZee 2.
Thorfinnson sank two 3-point shots. These Lakers each made one '3': Kath,, Stark, Dahl and Kolstoe. Kath with her eight rebounds led there. She also topped assists with three. Ankeny stole the ball five times. Isn't she rather a whiz at this? Kath swatted aside two shots. All in all a dominating performance to inaugurate 2024-25.
The LQPV totals were pretty anemic so we see three players at the top of scoring with just five points each: Caleigh Conn, Maya Sawatzky and Jalyn Lee. Jaydah Kessler scored three points, Brandi Meyer two and Kayla Jahn 1. No 3-pointers by the Eagles. No other stat categories were reported by the WC Tribune. We are waiting to see if the Willmar paper might do a little better giving attention to Morris Area Chokio Alberta. We did see individual scoring totals for the Tigers in the season opener. However, this might be a one-off. I'd love to be wrong on that.
Don't let Iowa monopolize all the attention for women's hoops in the Upper Midwest. It's hard to resist the urge to gravitate to those Hawkeyes. Why? Well, you know of a certain popular individual last year! My, what fame that individual has garnered. And she is even getting attention playing golf now! "CC" was complemented by two other pretty popular players last year at Iowa: Kate Martin and Gabbie Marshall. Gabbie promoted her own type of pizza!
Time moves on. Iowa got a top-notch transfer for the current team. That would be Lucy Olsen who previously played for Villanova. Hannah Stuelke is back. There are definitely some other players generating excitement.
But hey, the U of M Gophers actually look pretty impressive too! I'm ready to start following the Gophers as they get close to Big 10 play. I'd say they have pretty good potential. We saw that with the Wednesday win over Eastern Illinois. The Gophers crushed the foe 81-52 at Williams Arena. "Crushed" really pertains to the second quarter: a 29-6 advantage. The Gophers never looked back.
A sophomore posted our team-best point total of 16 - that was Grace Gracholski, a guard. She was 4 of 7 in 3-pointers. Freshman Tori McKinney made her starting debut and poured in 14 points. She went 7 of 8 at the freethrow line. Our ranks were depleted by the loss of a player to injury. That's Mara Braun of Wayzata. It was a practice injury.
I find it encouraging that I don't even know our coach's name, at least not without reading a press account of a game. You know why that's encouraging? The person is not controversial or notorious for some reason. The U gets too many of those. Remember Cheryl Littlejohn? She was an oddball. We hired Lindsay Whalen for reasons you could easily assume. The fame did not transfer.
Let's get down to business. Hey the Gophers are now 6-0! Can we hope for success when we play Iowa? That matchup will certainly draw lots of interest. Today (Sunday) will have our beloved rodents playing on the Williams Arena court again, this time versus the Montana Grizzlies. Gophers vs. Grizzlies, how about that?
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment