Minnesota Playoff Central: McAndrew Goes for 40

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Wayzata is the first time to punch their ticket to state. [player_tooltip player_id='1287438' first='Jackson' last='McAndrew'] scored 40 in a Trojan route of Hopkins. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Playoff Central.</strong>  Eyes of the high school basketball world were on Hopkins vs Wayzata last night and [player_tooltip player_id='1287438' first='Jackson' last='McAndrew'] delivered scoring 40 points. The previous Royals/[program_tooltip program_id='2075965' first='Trojans' last=''] games were very tight, and if you had to indeed pick the team that was better in those two games you would say Hopkins. The Wayzata staff surely reminded the Trojan players of this because they had a 55-40 halftime lead. Sophomores [player_tooltip player_id='1560867' first='Christian' last='Wiggins'] and [player_tooltip player_id='1560807' first='Isaac' last='Olmstead'] had 20 and 18 points respectively. If the day opens up at all I really want to look back at the numbers and performances of the Trojan standouts. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Upset City</strong>. Hard to call this an upset but 19-win West Lutheran went into the St. Paul Salvation Army - the wonderful Salvation Army that was used for the Pro Am for years - and beat 13-win CHOF by two scores. [player_tooltip player_id='1284144' first='Isaiah' last='Ronning'] scored 22 points to lead West Lutheran into the Section 4A title game against Heritage Christian. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>The Big Stage</strong>. I believe their are SIX places to catch a double-header tonight: UMD, Hibbing, Concordia-Moorhead, St. John's, STMA and Thief River Falls. Your top game options are:</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>8A Ada Borup West vs 2A Henning at Perham HS</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Osakis vs 3A Annandale at St. John's</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>9A Holy Family vs Minneapolis North at STMA HS</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Moose Lake-Willow River vs 6AA Esko at UMD </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>BBE vs 3A West Central Arena at Minnewaska Area</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Blake at 1AA Breck at STMA HS</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>WAO vs 7A Fertile-Beltrmai at Ralph Engelstad Arena</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Top Performers</strong>.  St. Paul Academy standout Mikkel Rawdon continues to blossom. He had 27 points in the win while [player_tooltip player_id='1451145' first='Ethan' last='Carter'] scored 15 points. St. Paul Academy will next play Minnehaha Academy for the section title (no stats reported from their win). SPA and Minnehaha played once this year already with SPA winning by 20. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Tip of the Hat to the Career</strong>. Many years in a row before [player_tooltip player_id='1139831' first='Andrew' last='Weber'] played as a freshman at St. Agnes, it was several single digit win seasons. Weber averaged ten points a game as a frosh in the covid shortened 2020-21 season and then his team won, 18, 16, and 18 games. Of course this is not all the work of Weber but he had a huge hand in taking a team that had 24 wins combined the three years before he was a varsity player and then helping them to 52 wins his last three full seasons as a varsity player. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->