NHR Playoff Central: The 4/5 Specials!
Upsets? Yep. Blowouts? Them too. Exciting basketball? Everywhere in the state of Minnesota including huge games this evening. NHR Playoff Central breaks it all down.
NHR Playoff Central. It’s playoff time and the games are spread out through Minnesota perfectly. Each and every night there seems to be something big to see. New Ulm Cathedral is continuing their excellent team play as they defeated New Ulm Cathedral by six last night. Also in the same section Cleveland defeated CMC by five in a close game. It’s that section 2A which seems to have half the best teams in the state of Minnesota from Class A.
The Big Stage. There are two huge 4/5 games this evening as North St. Paul takes on Tartan while Minnetonka faces Chaska. NSP has been ranked most of the year, Chaska was ranked for a good part of the year, and Tonka and Tartan were each ranked for a week. NSP and Tartan are in the same school district and it’s former Gopher Damian Johnson in his first year at NSP against Mark Klingsporn, the long time veteran coach. Then you have Chaska and Tonka, a pair of schools that include two of the better juniors in the state Cole Nicholson and Jalen Dearring.
Upset City. Ever heard of 6-4 Big Lake forward Drew Rudlong? Most in his league are quite familiar as Drew scores a dozen a game but those from Big Lake will never forget him and statewide he’s a name to know as a top playoff performer. Drew made 13 of 17 field goal attempt at Dassel-Cokato last night and scored 30 points moving his team on over favorite DC. Apollo beating Alexandria on the road wasn’t a big upset but Marquise Smith scoring 30 in that 4/5 game is surely noteworthy. The 6 seed Buffalo Bison knocking out 3 seed Rogers was also noteworthy as Tony Dahl scored 22 for his squad. Tony has dealt with injury issues this year and having him back has been huge for the sophomore dominated Bison Crew. The biggest upset was most likely Moorhead defeating St. Cloud Tech in overtime. Junior Maleeck Harden scored 27 points and sophomore Drew Hagen added 26 in their big win.
Quality 4/5s. There are several other quality 4/5s this evening. Mankato West and Worthington will be a fun contest down south, Fridley and St. Paul Johnson will be a fun game with little size but a lot of pressuring basketball players. Roseville and Spring Lake Park are quality teams going at it, Farmington and Lakeville South is going to be a good game in the south metro, and Waconia facing BSM in their new gym should be excellent as well.
Hat Tip to the Career. Brevyn Spann-Ford of St. Cloud Apollo scored 36 and is of course one of the top ten senior prospects in the state. Brevyn’s next public sports competition will be catching touchdown passes for Coach PJ Fleck’s team. It was a tough loss but Brevyn will learn from it. U of Mary shooter Trever Kaiser had 22 in his final game and even though D-S lost, Kaiser led them to a better season than anybody expected them to have. Another top name who had his season end early last night was Rogers forward Jordan Belka who will be at Northern State next year along with Justin Balcome of Alexandria who also lost on Tuesday. Both will be at NSU together next fall. Add in Nate Seeleye from Grand Rapids and Markel Aune of Kennedy and it’s strong group of players to honor.