The Weekend Menu – Winter Lakes Classic, TG vs Hopkins
This weekend's headliner is the Winter Lakes Classic in Alexandria matching several of the top teams in Minnesota against one another.
Tasty Appetizer. Tonight's appetizer is Holy Angels vs St. Anthony Village at 6pm. The guard match-up of 23 point per game senior Tait Nelson against the outstanding defense and 15.4 points a game of sophomore Emmett Johnson. AHA is 13-6 while St. Anthony is 10-8 and the difference will likely be size. The Huskies have a lot of good guards but do they have somebody to stop the 21 points and 10 boards of Matt Banovetz up front? Fans can get to that game and find a 7:30 game close by (several options) to see as well.
Specials. If you live in southwestern Minnesota, or you want to go for a drive, the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls has games being played from 8am until almost midnight. Almost 16 hours of high school basketball? Yes. And included on the schedule is a very good Moorhead (13-6) team and 6th ranked Minneapolis North facing second ranked Sioux Falls Christian. The Spuds are on a hot streak while the Polars are going to represent the state of Minnesota against one of the best teams from South Dakota.
Main Course. The Winter Lakes Classic in Alexandria is stacked with good boys and girls games on Saturday. Here is the boys schedule.
There are seven games overall, four of the contests are boys games:
- 1:15 – Sauk Centre (6-12) vs #10AA East Grand Forks (15-0)
- 4:15 – Melrose (14-5) vs #8AA Eden Valley-Watkins (15-1)
- 6:00 – #3AA Perham (14-0) vs #7AA Osakis (16-1)
- 7:30 – #6AAA Delano (14-2) vs Alexandria (13-4)
Dessert. Totino-Grace vs Hopkins. The Eagles have showed that not only are they the team of the future, but they are a team that must be deal with in the present. And now Totino-Grace tests themselves against Hopkins, the defending Class AAAA state champions. Here is a quick match-up rundown:
DJ Akpati (6'0 Jr) vs Cornell Richardson (5'11 Sr). The point guard battle.
CJ O'Hara (6'4 Fr) vs Andre Gray (6'3 Jr). Talented wings, O'Hara leads T-G in scoring.
Taison Chatman (6'3 Fr) vs Kerwin Walton (6'6 Sr). The top frosh prospect vs the top available senior prospect.
Tommy Humphries (6'4 Fr) vs Sawyer Shrake (6'2 Sr). TG's 7th man and the Hopkins worker.
Carter Weierke (6'4 Jr) vs Jaelen Treml (6'4 Jr). Good size juniors wings who have both had good years.
Devin Burger (6'6 Jr) vs Xavier White (6'5 Jr). Burger scores 10-11 a game, White's size may be needed vs him.
Joe Alt (6'6 Jr) vs Elvis Nnaji (6'7 Soph). The only low post players in this game, a top football guy vs a top hoops underclassmen.
