The Select Classic Preview: 17U

The Select Classic is this weekend and the field is bigger than we’ve seen in recent years. Several local clubs will head to Lakeville South this weekend to earn themselves a weekend title. 17U. It’s a Sweet 16 format with all Minnesota clubs that will try and make a name for themselves against a winnable level of opponents. The event favorite? I would go with Comets Little or Rip City. They are the only top 15 ranked teams in Minnesota that will be at this event and a tournament championship would be huge for the kids and for their records. Comets Little is a team we previewed recently because they are big (Zac Fincher and Weston Hine), they have scorers (Noah Kannegeisser and Kobey Woolhouse), and they have players that are a part win winners (Nick Bieniek and Cade Neubert). The other top 20 team in this event is Select Leafblad (they are ranked #20). The fourth top 25 team is the Southeastern Minnesota Lightning (they are ranked 25). You also have WOTN Wold and Select Ellis in this tournament and those are clubs that are just outside of the top 25. Select Leafblad is the club that has the Blaine talent (Sam Browne, Byron Binum, and Ray Mitchell) plus worker Jordan Johnston from Minneapolis Roosevelt and Marcus Sims from North St. Paul. The Lightning has the top prospect at the event, 6-foot-9 Mark Kotieno Mboya from Pine Island. He, Marc Kjos of Lake City, Dakota Matthees of Winona, 6-7 Carter Groski of Stewartville, and Zach Kjeseth of Wabaska-Kellogg make this a team you will want to see this weekend if you are scouting prospects. Select Ellis has Wambde Diaz of CMC who is the player from southern Minnesota who grabbed 32 rebounds in a game. Diaz, Tytist Dean of North St. Paul, Parker Shanks of PEM, shooter Keagan Maloney of St. Charles, and Tyler Ernst of Eagan are important Select Ellis players. Other contenders? I would say TC Finest has to be spoken of. They gave D1 Minnesota a run for about 25 game minutes up in St. Cloud (they only played two games up there though so not ranked as of now). Watch out for their 2019 PG Quincy Blu of DeLaSalle as well as explosive Krystian Tolliver and a top 2017 in Curtis Bell. Antonio Maddox and Josh Bryant both had great years and they are on TC Finest as well. From there we have teams that we don’t know much about but will learn about. Teams like Comets Tuuok, WC Wildcats, Heat Inniger, Minnesota Knights, Air Force One, Minnesota Swish, High Impact, and EOTO.   Comets Thuok has a nice player in Marquise Smith from Apollo and productive Weston Olson from Cambridge. Who wins? Tough call. I say a final four of SE Minnesota Lightning vs Comets Little, and TC Finest against Select Leafbald or Rip City (tough call). Rip City was better last weekend so they should be the pick.