The girls basketball team from St. Paul Como Park made history Wednesday afternoon at Maturi Pavilion, winning a game at the state tournament for the first time. The Cougars, who previously went to state in 2016, defeated Grand Rapids 76-57 in the Class 3A quarterfinals and will meet Totino-Grace Lakes in Thursday’s semifinals at Williams Arena.
The biggest player for Como Park is senior
Ronnie Porter. She was named the St. Paul Pioneer Press East Metro player of
year this week and scored a game-high 22 points with seven assists and five
steals Wednesday while playing all but 56 seconds of the game.
In her case, “biggest” refers not to her height
but her impact. She is averaging nearly 23 points per game and has more than 2,000
career points. Porter is listed as 5 feet, 3 inches in the tournament program;
asked about her height after Wednesday’s game, she joked, “I’m 5-8.”
“I don't even think about it,” she
said. “I don't even worry about the size.”
Como Park
coach Olonda England said her pregame instructions to the Cougars were simple:
Play your game, the kind of basketball that saw them bring a 21-6 record to
state.
“Stay
mentally ready and just get up and down the floor,” were her instructions.
Como Park controlled
nearly the entire game, trailing only once for 14 seconds. The Cougars led by as
many as 21 but it was a 10-point game, 61-51, with 5:35 remaining in the second
half. Como Park clamped down hard on defense, outscoring the Thunderhawks 11-0 to
put it away.
Grand Rapids Specializes In Multi-Sport Athletes
The Grand Rapids Thunderhawks girls basketball roster
consists of 13 players, and 12 of them take part in one or two other sports. Half
a dozen basketball players are three-sport athletes, participating in tennis,
softball, track, soccer, lacrosse, golf, etc.
“It's
awesome. It really benefits us because they stay fit and physical all year
round, whether it's volleyball, basketball, tennis, whatever,” said girls
basketball coach Kris Hamling. “They're just doing all sorts of activities and
they know what pressure is. They want to win and those sports transfer over to other
sports. We're grateful to be able to have those kinds of athletes on our teams.”
Grand Rapids
activities director Anne Campbell said the school has around 600
student-athletes, with about 35 percent of them involved in more than one
sport.
“We're a
community that is not large,” she said. “We wouldn't have enough kids if our
kids didn't play other sports.”
Kyra Giffen,
a track athlete and a starter on the Thunderhawks’ state-tournament volleyball
team last fall, said, “It definitely helps us stay in shape and learn different
movements. The muscles that I use in volleyball and track are different than
basketball, so it's great getting everything throughout the whole year.”
Katelyn
Jamtgaard, another volleyball starter, said, “Especially with volleyball, you
really have to work on your vertical and I think that helps so much with
basketball. And things like leg strength and core strength from volleyball carry
over to basketball.”
Taryn
Hamling, who had a team-high 20 points Wednesday and also plays tennis, said, “Tennis
is more of a personal sport, and that helps me on the basketball floor not to
get too angry and to just keep my composure and just be myself.”
Down To The Wire For Becker-Austin
The Becker Bulldogs are among the top dogs in Class
3A girls basketball, as evidenced by their performance in recent seasons …
2018-19: State runner-up.
2019-20: Advanced to the state championship
game, which was never played when Covid-19 shut down the tournament.
2020-21: State champs.
Since the start of the 2018-19 season, the
Bulldogs have a record of 98-14. But they were in trouble, big trouble, on
Wednesday in the state quarterfinals against Austin at Maturi Pavilion.
The matchup was intriguing, with Becker (23-4)
the top seed in 3A and Austin not seeded despite a sterling record of 24-5; teams
are seeded by the participating coaches.
“Austin is a
fantastic team,” said Becker coach Dan Baird. “For them to be our first-round
matchup, I don't know. I don't know how that happened or what's wrong with the
process but they're one of the best teams in Class 3A and we knew that going in.”
With a bit more than two minutes to play
Wednesday, it looked the Bulldogs might be going out. Austin had stepped up
throughout the game and the Packers looked to be in position to pull off the
surprise.
Austin had leads as large as 10 points in the
second half and led by seven with a little more than two minutes to play. But
Becker, playing strong defense and hitting shots when it counted the most, did
what Becker does. The Bulldogs scored the game’s final 12 points and won 53-48.
“Our message
to the girls was it was going to be a tough game,” Baird said. “We knew we had
to come out and play because we their five starters are really, really good.”
Austin held
the lead for more than 21 minutes in the 34-minute game, with Hope Dudycha and
Olivia Walsh each scoring 12 points. Becker was led by Maren Westin with 15
points and Adeline Kent with 13.
“We just
didn't quite get that one more bucket that we needed, and give credit to what Becker
does defensively,” said Austin coach Eric Zoske. “Obviously, they're very good. They
have athletes, they switch everything, and we knew that. … We did the best we
could to simulate them in practice. But you know, it comes down to hitting
shots, right? And they hit a couple of shots the last four or five minutes, and
it's kind of like throw the defense out the window. If you're open, you’ve got
to hit it. And they did that the last couple of minutes.”
--MSHSL media specialist John Millea has been the leading voice of
Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn
and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts.
Contact John at jmillea@mshsl.org
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