Ten Best: Edina vs Prior Lake
Edina improved to 18-9 on the season with a 75-69 win over Prior Lake led by the 26 points from Hornets senior Walt McGrory.
MVP. Walt McGrory. Walt led the Hornets with 26 points on 9 of 15 shooting that included three treys and five of seven foul shooting. Walt also grabbed eight rebounds and dished out a game high five assists. Coaches from Maine and Brown were in the crowd watching Walt led his team to playoff victory.
McGrory showed off his consistent stroke with feet set at the arc and his beautiful pull-up jumper. What really caught my eye was Walt’s second gear versus Prior Lake getting into space and extending to make a place with a contested finish or a creation for another. Walt also did a great job using an extra dribble to draw in help/one-pass away defenders allowing his teammates to get to space for a high IQ assist.
Top Offensive Player. Jacob Fredrickson. At 6-foot-3, 6-foot-4 Fredrickson put forth one of the most impressive low post performances I’ve seen all year. First off Jacob did a great job diving into the post or cutting from block to block to get post position. He did an ever better job of holding that position for an entry.
After that Jacob used a Kevin McHale like bag of moves in the post that included an up and under over each shoulder, several fakes using great footwork to pivot through to space, and lets not forget the simple power move with a balanced finish. Edina simply had no clue of what Jacob was going to do and that allowed him to make 11 of 12 field goals and another five of seven foul shots for his game high 27 points. Jacob averaged 8.5 points per game this year so this was one of his best games every.
Top Defensive Player. Edina Forwards. The Hornets had a terrible time with Fredrickson but they did a fantastic job of making Trent West go over their length to finish all night. The Prior Lake forward was a big focus as the Hornets were worried about his touch and they did a great job with it. Jimmy Connell, Derek Graf, Michael Van Gorp, and Matt Hofrenning are all guys I believe were on West and they worked hard to limit West to 2 of 8 shooting and four points (West had eight boards).
Top Bench Player. Luke Glenna/Alex Preston. Both players had a nice contribution off the bench. Luke made a pair of massive threes late in the game that helped the run and he defended hard. Preston scored 11 points making four shots off the bench and aggressively working to score. Preston was Prior Lake’s third leading scorer this year.
Top Underclassmen. Jack Middleton. Love the effort that the 6-foot-2 gives. I’ve watched Edina play Wayzata and Prior Lake this year and Jack’s effort, defense, and trustworthy play was on the floor at the end. He also grabbed four boards, had some quality assists, and scored twice.
Prior Lake’s 6-foot-8 sophomore Robert Jones and 6-foot-7 forward Dawson Garcia didn’t have a big impact on the game but their potential was quite apparent. Garcia’s lateral agility was clear when he was doing his best to move with McGrory and Jones had some great post ups that were ruined by terrible officiating.
Best in Support. Anders Nelson. When the ball was moved to the wing Nelson caught and attacked a rotating defense with a quickness that Prior Lake could not move to. Nelson made 9 of 16 attempts including a pair of threes that led to his 20 points in support of McGrory from the opposite side of the court.
Best Prospect. Too early to tell. Dawson Garcia has the size, length, and agility to be a top ten prospect in his class at least. Dawson scored just under nine a game this year and is the only non-senior among the top five scorers on the team. Garcia has skill although he only took one shot last night. Jones is strong, long, and moves well. He has a chance to be a quality prospect as well, and if he grows, look out. Garcia is a freshman, Jones a sophomore.
Walt is certainly the easy pick at the moment for this category although my guess is that Garcia will be top five or six in his class in the end. When we redo the rankings for the senior class Walt is someplace in the top 15.
Best Aspect of the Environment. Last game at the ECC. The Edina Community Center is a really fun place to watch a game. It has character all to its own and I’ve enjoyed watching games and coaching games in that building. A win for Edina was quite appropriate and it was a nice touch that current Gopher Reggie Lynch was there as well.
Best Story Moving Forward. Edina vs Chaska. This is a very strong semi-final game. Both have been top ten teams this year with Edina slipping out later and Chaska jumping back in the second half of the season. Edina won the first match-up 74-68 in the Eden Prairie Tournament. In that game Myles Hanson had 34 but Andrew Kallman wasn’t in the box score (so he was hurt, sick, or didn’t score) and Cole Nicholson was well defended. Anders Nelson had 24 and Walt scored 22. Alex Strazzanti had 17 for the Hawks.
Other. Jimmy Connell. The worker four man nabbed two massive offensive rebounds late in the game that became second chance scores for Walt. On one Connell kicked out to Walt for a three and another time he hit Walt cutting for thee basket. Jimmy scored three times and grabbed a game high nine boards…
Casey Gustina made eight of ten foul shots for Prior Lake for his eight points plus had four assists pushing the pace….Trent West has grown as a prospect. He’s long, agile, and his really improved the touch and range on his jumper. Had a tough day shooting but still grabbed the eight boards.
Finally….Brian Sitzmann finished his career with a 20 point game making three treys as a part of his 6 of 13 shooting game. Brian also shot 5 of 7 from the foul line, grabbed seven boards, dished out four assists, and played his final game in front of his future college coach at Minnesota-Crookston Dan Weisse.