Minnesota Playoff Central: Minneota Vikings Move on!

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>We had the highest ranked team in the state go on and a freshman hit a giant buzzer beater on a 72 game Thursday night! </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Playoff Central.</strong> Last night was the second biggest night of playoff basketball we will have this year as 72 games were played across Class AA and Class A basketball. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Class AA had four lower seeds win games although I would not call most of them upsets. Morris Area (over Montevideo), Rockford (over Dassel-Cokato), and Nova Classical (over Mounds Park Academy) were all wins that you could certainly see happening. The big one came from GSL (more on that later). </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Class A was a lot wilder with 11 high seeds getting early exits. Verndale beating Bertha-Hewitt was quite noteworthy as Verndale finished the regular season with seven wins but they are moving on. RTR knocked off Southwest Minnesota Christian so the defending champs are still alive. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Upset City</strong>. One of the biggest state tournament and state title contenders went down last night in Class A basketball (and it might be tough to top this one unless somebody takes down Wayzata, Park Center, Cherry, Totino-Grace or Breck before state). </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>On January 25th the Minneota Vikings fought Dawson-Boyd but lost 55-64. A week and a half ago Minneota got a little closer but lost 53-58. And you know what they say about beating a team three times! Last night Minneota dropped Class A's second ranked team 61-57 in overtime. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The Vikings are a 22 win team so this isn't some single win team knocking off a contender but it is a big story of a top team and top talent going down. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Minneota is quite a story because they were an 8-17 team last year. That said, they are a veteran team led by Ryan Dalager and Max Rost, a pair of guards that know each other well. They had a great football run this year - yes as the Minneota Vikings (good luck searching for information on google on the Minneota Vikings without the most specific search you will ever do) - as the pair racked up touchdowns and now Dalager and Rost are scoring and creating their way deeper in the playoffs. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>The Big Stage.</strong>  Tonight there is one location to take in a pair of games and that is STMA High School. The 5AAA semi-finals will be played with Becker taking on Class AAA number one ranked Totino-Grace and Big Lake facing Fridley. It's the heavy favorite (TG) playing our preseason predicted four seed Becker, followed by our predicted 2-3 seed Big Lake facing section surprise Fridley. All around Miami signed talent [player_tooltip player_id='1284143' first='Isaiah' last='Johnson'] leads TG, the 19ppg of Kyan Bloomquist leads Becker, Big Lake leading scorer sophomore [player_tooltip player_id='1628769' first='Owen' last='Wilczek'] (15ppg) is their top talent, and [player_tooltip player_id='1296151' first='Antwan' last='Smith'] leads Fridley. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Top Performers</strong>. You want to talk about big moments for a freshman!?!? GLS frosh [player_tooltip player_id='2423114' first='Lincoln' last='Busse'] took a pass behind the arc, had room for one turn several feet behind the arc, got balanced, and took his team from a playoff exit to a 68-67 upset win over Minnesota Valley Lutheran, in an instant. A special play in March Madness! </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In the Richfield win over Mound-Westonka on Wednesday, [player_tooltip player_id='1549740' first='Zavier' last='Hayes'] just missed his fifth triple double of the year. The all around player had 13 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Speaking of triple doubles, Math &amp; Science Academy dropped their game to St. Croix Prep but not without one heck of an effort from Josh Balami. Insert all the math and science jokes you want with this one, Josh had 52 points, a dozen boards and ten steals! Patrick Brown led St. Croix Prep with 25 points. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Deer River sophomore Cal Jackson scored 27 points with the majority of that coming from eight threes made in the 75-41 win over Littlefork-Big Falls. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Tip of the Hat to the Career</strong>. [player_tooltip player_id='1284232' first='Will' last='Walter'] of SESM is a three time all league player that averaged 20+ points a game a pair of seasons and played in a pair of state tournaments. SESM won 20 games with the 6'5 Walter doing some of everything (had 16 points, 7 boards and 6 assists in the previous game). Walter will play at Bethany Lutheran next year. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->