Its time to kickoff the 2011 "AA" Girls basketball tournament as the last four teams made their way to state last night. In the surprise of the night it was the Lynxs knocking off the Riders behind great play from Heidi Hoff's 30 point night and Jessie Peterson timely 3's and her 16 points to make the Lynxs the #4 seed facing the #5 seed Mitchell Kernels in the first round of the state tournament on Thursday afternoon at 2:45pm. In the other region action last night it was the Yanton Gazelles over the Brookings Bobcats 40-37 to earn the #3 seed in the tournament. They will play Aberdeen Central in the late game on Thursday night as the Golden Eagles beat the Spearfish Spartans 65-42 to earn the #6 seed in the tournament. The last team to get in was the RC Stevens Raiders. They beat Huron 62-43 to earn the #7 seed and a first round game with the #2 seed O'Gorman Knights. The first game of the tournament slates the reigning state champs, the #1 seed Washington Warriors vs the #8 seed RC Central Cobblers.
I will break down the brackets and tell you who I think will win and why hoping to get your opinion and comments on the girls state tournament. In the first game of the day at 1pm its the #1 Washington Warriors and the #8 RC Cobblers. After watching the Warriors play all season and Mercede Stotesbery going down at the end of the season and is now back from a foot injury and playing well I feel that it would take a really bad shooting night on their part to knock them off. When Mercede went down it was other girls stepping up and that gives them more confidence going into the tournament. I would be surprised if the Warriors were not in the title game but that's why they play the games.
If anybody can knock off the Warriors I feel that two teams have the chance. The first team that I believe can is the #4 seed Brandon Valley Lynxs. They take on the #5 seed Mitchell Kernels at 2:45pm in the second game of the day. Brandon's coach Mark Stadem has done a nice job of getting the team playing with confidence at the right time. Heidi Hoff and Jessie Peterson are playing really well and Allison Koehn is playing great on the inside. It will be an interesting match up with the Kernels because they know each other so well by being in the ESD and playing twice already this season. Brandon won both times by ten so we will see if the Kernels make any adjustments for this game. I see BV getting pass this game and making it to the semi-finals.
In the night session starting at 7pm its the #2 seed O'Gorman Knights taking on the #7 seed RC Stevens Raiders. I believe the other team that could beat the Warriors are the Knights because of their two headed monster of Chandler Nielsen and Alisa Brown but as Chris Clark of the Roosevelt Rough Riders found out that if you stop those two someone else will step up like Tori Langin or Alyssa Brazil did in the district one Championship. If the Knights want to have success in the first round of the tournament they will have to stop 6'2 junior Margaret McCloud. O'Gorman beat the Raiders 60-44 on Jan 7th in their only other match up of the year. I think OG wins and moves on to the semi-finals on Friday night.
The last game of the night puts the #3 seed Yankton Gazelles and the #6 seed Aberdeen Central Golden Eagles facing off in another ESD battle for the right to move to the semi finals on Friday night. Yankton won both season match ups 39-32 and 48-39. I watched Yankton play O'Gorman earlier this year and they gave the Knights a great game. I was impressed with junior guard Chloe Cornemann, she is a great point guard that can get the ball to the right person and she makes their team go. Again its going to come down to which team makes the right adjustments from the previous games. I think the Gazelles will get out and run and make it an up tempo game; something that Dawn Seiler and her team hates to do. They are a slow it down and run some offense type of team. We will see what style wins out. I see Yankton taking the first round game in a really close game.
I am really excited and can't wait for Thursday to get here! It should be a great tournament! ESPN 99.1 will have coverage of the tournament starting at 1pm with Brad Peterson as the defending state champs Washington Warriors take on the RC Central Cobblers. I will also have updates from the tournament as well so anything you want to know about or have a question for me don't be afraid to send me a comment or feedback! I voiced my opinion on the tournament, now I want yours!
Good Luck to all the teams, players, refs, and coaches in B, A and AA state tournaments across the state of South Dakota.
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