The Weekend Menu – Border Battle, Community Clash, Ranked Showdowns
Looking for high school games to attend over the weekend in Minnesota? Friday and Saturday give you several options and today we break those options down.
Tasty Appetizer. St. Croix Lutheran vs Saint Anthony Village. The Crusaders have a big weekend ahead playing Saint Anthony followed by Monticello and tonight's game is at 6pm. At 9-7 these are games the Crusaders need to win if they are to start building to their expectations. Saint Anthony has Tait Nelson, a player coming off of a 41 point game that made the Mr. Basketball Watch List. The Crusaders are led by a really nice group of juniors in Zach Longueville, Owen Bushaw, and Xavier Garcia but they just can't find the consistency they are looking for. St Croix Lutheran has knocked off Delano and Holy Angles this year, but they've also given up a boat load of points to Richfield and Fridley in recent losses.
Specials. For those in the Twin Cities that don't want to drive to Wisconsin, you can head up to St. Michael-Albertville where two courts will be running games all day (one court is at the high school, the other is at the middle school). There will be seven sets of games on both the boys side and the girls side with most high schools in attendance bringing both of their boys and girls varsity teams. The game list for boys is: Hibbing vs Orono, St Croix Lutheran vs Monticello, Brainerd vs Maple Grove, Chaska vs STMA, Simley vs Big Lake, Holy Family vs Rockford, and St Louis Park vs Waconia. Five Players to see: Ayden McDonald of Hibbing, PJ Hayes of Waconia, Calvin Sisk of Rockford, Zach Lea of Chaska, and Zach Longueville of St. Croix Lutheran.
Main Course. The Main Course is the Border Battle in La Crosse in Wisconsin, an event Minnesota usually dominates on local soil and evens up in Wisconsin territory. This year it's going to be tougher for the Minnesota teams than in past years. Austin, Minnehaha Academy, and Lake City are very likely to earn wins but Lakeville North, Spring Grove, and Mahtomedi have tough tasks ahead of them. The swing game will likely be Rochester Mayo vs Eau Clairie North. The first five games will be at La Crosse Central but Minnehaha Academy vs La Crosse Central and Lakeville North vs Onalaska will be played at UW LaCrosse as the event prepares for a bigger crowd. Five Players to see: Agwa Nywesh of Austin, Nathan Heise of Lake City, Gabe Madsen of Rochester Mayo, Chet Holmgren of Minnehaha Academy, and Jalen Suggs of Minnehaha Academy.
Dessert. There are two Titanic clashes tomorrow with Waseca playing at Marshall at 1:30pm and then Eden Prairie playing at DeLaSalle at 7pm. Marshall is ranked 4th in Class AAA while the Jays are 4th in AA. The match-up of Ryan Dufault vs Bryce Lance at point should be outstanding as should Noah Puetz vs Andrew Morgan up front. The fan bases will come out for this game in big numbers.
The island will be buzzing tomorrow night when undefeated top ranked Eden Prairie takes on 2nd ranked (in Class AAA) DeLaSalle. Cade Haskins vs Connor Christensen on the wing, Drake Dobbs vs Amit Whitlock in the backcourt, and Jalen Travis vs Austin Andrews up front will all be great match-ups to see.
