Minnesota Playoff Central: Metro Semi-Finals

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Four metro sections have their semi-finals tonight with Hopkins vs Buffalo taking center stage.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Playoff Central</strong>. It's a light night of games as many of the sections have spread out their games over the past two/two plus weeks because there is such a big gap between the state tournament and the last section games. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Tonight you have the 6AAAA semi-finals matching Edina and Wayzata as well as Buffalo and Hopkins. The Section 4A semi-finals are tonight as are the 4AA and 5AA semi-finals. Blake taking on Minneapolis North and Maranatha Christian playing at Southwest Christian are likely the games with the most eyes on them when it comes to small schools. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>The Big Stage</strong>. All games are in single game situations tonight so we look at Buffalo and Hopkins as the biggest contest of the night. These are top ten level teams that split their games this winter. These teams played just less than two weeks ago and Hopkins won 86-74. [player_tooltip player_id='1550877' first='Jayden' last='Moore'] had 30 points and eight assists in that contest while [player_tooltip player_id='1560839' first='Xavier' last='Frelix'] scored 17 points. [player_tooltip player_id='2388499' first='Anthony' last='Byrd'] of Hopkins is also playing really well with double-doubles in his last three games. [player_tooltip player_id='2126866' first='Matthew' last='Jordan'] scored 28 points in the loss for Buffalo. Hopkins is playing better basketball right now while Buffalo has hit a bit of a struggle and they barely got by Washburn to get to this game. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Upset City</strong>.  Last night we saw two three seeds beat two seeds (Springfield beat Madelia and Waseca defeated GSL) in what are technically upsets but in truth these were really not much of upsets, just good teams of similar talent competing. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Top Performances</strong>. Springfield 6'4 forward [player_tooltip player_id='2399032' first='Bryan' last='Buerkle'] has been playing really good basketball and last night he poured in 31 points to push Springfield to the next round over Madelia. [player_tooltip player_id='2423280' first='[player_tooltip player_id='2419072' first='Brecken' last='']' last='Heiling'] had 20 for Springfield in support. The senior pair pushed their team to a 30 point win.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>JWP had four guys in double figures beating Nicollet 75-58. [player_tooltip player_id='2386616' first='Gavin' last='Bauer'] had 21, Dalton Bauer scored 18 and [player_tooltip player_id='2815258' first='Gavin' last='Weedman'] had 15. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Tip of the Hat to the Career</strong>. [player_tooltip player_id='1560769' first='Ethan' last='Sonju'] of Glencoe-Silver Lake. Ethan finishes his career as one of the best scorers in his class. This past 17u season there is no doubt in my mind that Ethan led the state in points per game and last night he scored 28 points in the loss to Waseca. When it comes to range on the jumper, Ethan is one of the best. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->