Minnesota Playoff Central: Overtime Thrillers!

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>We had some big excitement Tuesday night in playoff action and we run you through the details now!</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Playoff Central.</strong> The fireworks last night were outstanding. Lets look at a few of the big moments!</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Fergus Falls junior guard [player_tooltip player_id='1586881' first='Henry' last='Bethel'] came up big with two game winning blocks to earn his team a 68-66 win over Rocori. Bethel had 27 points, nine rebounds and four assists while fellow junior standout [player_tooltip player_id='2103377' first='Ryan' last='Hirst'] had a double-double of 15 points and 10 rebounds.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Farmington nearly saw their season end in regulation when JM had a look to win it at the buzzer but it rimmed out. [player_tooltip player_id='1287441' first='Brandon' last='Hrncir'] had the biggest sequence in overtime with a physical attack to score followed by a rebound and outlet pass for a [player_tooltip player_id='1439459' first='Tyler' last='Beckwith'] score that put their team up for good. Hrncir had 12 points and 10 rebounds, [player_tooltip player_id='1439459' first='Tyler' last='Beckwith'] had 19 points and 11 rebounds, [player_tooltip player_id='1617794' first='Ryan' last='Beckwith'] had 24 points and Lima Roche had a season high 16. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Becker junior Mitch Soltau hit a regulation left win buzzer beater to send the game into overtime. This ball bounced off the front of the rim and made everybody wait and wait as the ball hit everything before falling. Becker then outscored Monticello 12-2 in overtime to win the game 108-98. Soltau had 12, Kyan Bloomquist had 25 and [player_tooltip player_id='1506327' first='Nathan' last='Weiss'] had a team high 28 points. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Upset City</strong>. Northfield beat Winona twice this year. But you know what they say about playing teams three times! Winona controlled the Raiders with a 68-49 win and it was 6'6 [player_tooltip player_id='2364156' first='Jackson' last='Harvey'] scored 23 points around the basket that Northfield simply could not deal with. Winona earned their 7th win of the season getting the 6 seed over 3 seed upset. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Alden-Conger was also a six seed that beat a three seed (USC). That said there was a one game difference between the teams and Alden-Conger beat USC in the previous match-up so it really didn't qualify as an upset in realistic terms. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>The Big Stage.</strong>  We are going to go two ways with this....</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Mayo Civic Center. Again. The home for high school playoff basketball in Minnesota. In one area of the building you can see Fillmore Central vs Spring Grove and Goodhue vs Rushford Peterson, and the other area of the Civic Center it's Winona Cotter against Caledonia and Lewiston-Altura taking on Cannon Falls.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The other big stage is Class AAAA and Class AAA with AAAA having 26 section quarterfinals and AAA having 19 of them. Hutch as a five seed heading to Worthington, Mound-Westonka at Richfield, and Rock Ridge at Denfeld are pry the biggest AAA games. For AAAA, Chan at Waconia, Spring Lake Park at Mounds View, Champlin Park at Osseo, Armstrong at Edina, Southwest at Washburn, Moorhead at Sauk Rapids-Rice, and Brainerd at Buffalo are noteworthy. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Top Performers</strong>. Future Gopher football player Mason Carrier scored 40 points with 13 rebounds as his Detroit Lakes team scored 101 points to beat Apollo. Brandton Marsh had 26 in support. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='1297889' first='Tyler' last='Connelly'] scored 26 points hitting five threes leading Byron over Kasson-Mantorville 80-53.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='1284143' first='Isaiah' last='Johnson'] and [player_tooltip player_id='1560835' first='Tian' last='Chatman'] each had 20 points for Totino-Grace who beat Zimmerman by 60 points. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='1296151' first='Antwan' last='Smith'] had 20 for Fridley in the win over Princeton. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Tip of the Hat to the Career</strong>. Rocori guard [player_tooltip player_id='2175459' first='Jack' last='Boos'] had a fantastic senior season scoring 28 a game as both the lead guard and the scorer. Boos was fantastic and did everything to help his team win a dozen games despite having only a couple seniors on the roster.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->