With the Minnesota Girl’s State Basketball Tournament starting Wednesday morning from Williams Arena, I wanted to give you a preview of who to watch, where, and where they are ranked with our rankings of Prep Girls Hoops Minnesota. One thing’s…
With the Minnesota Girl’s State Basketball Tournament starting Wednesday morning from Williams Arena, I wanted to give you a preview of who to watch, where, and where they are ranked with our rankings of Prep Girls Hoops Minnesota. One thing’s to remember, state tournament basketball brings some of the best competition from our fine state to Minneapolis to see who will be the champions.
A lot of the talk you’ll hear at the state tournament is in Class AAAA and the spotlight is on the undefeated Hopkins Royals. Can they repeat? Can they get “back to back” undefeated seasons? The first question I’ll answer if they do both, they without question deserve a spot at Geico Nationals, showing off some of the best girl’s hoops teams in the nation. Too bad that’s not my decision to send them there; it would be no brainer!
Of course, there are seven other teams in this Class 4AAAA state tournament that you deserve to know their story too. We will start with Cambridge-Isanti, a program that plays mostly Class 3AAA schools in the Mississippi 8, but they’ve fought so hard to get this far and deserve to be heard after back to back shockings of 1 seed Andover, and 3 seed Forest Lake in their section championship. Next, there’s Park Center who may have one of the most terrific “must watch players” in the Midwest in Adalia McKenzieAdaliaMcKenzie
5'10" | CG Park Center | 2021State#39NationMN.
Next, you have Stillwater, who had a walk in the park thru their section winning their section final over East Ridge by 47 points, how will they fare this week against prime competition at Williams Arena? Next up you have STMA, a program that I think is much better on the floor than their record gets credit for, what a heck of strength of schedule head coach Kent Hamre put together to lead his girls to this point. We are headed to Lakeville North next, where you get to watch the best shooter in the state in Lauren JensenLaurenJensen
5'10" | CG Lakeville North | 2020StateMN
and a Lakeville North team that peaked again at the right time to get back to the state tournament.
Heading to their south, we head to Farmington, a team I’ll admit I should have watched sooner this year (well before the state tournament, at least.) as watching them on film makes me want to throw a chair like Bob Knight, only for missing out on the fun. Last but not least, Eden Prairie, a team like STMA certainly an average fan at the state tournament will say “They are 19-8, how’d they get this far?” If you only knew my friend, you should have gone to Chaska last Friday night to watch that rally spark the Eagles had, it was something they say you only see in movies but I was living in the heart of the Eagles faithful fanbase.
These are all small stories and those are some stories that are going to be told this week as the state tournament will be live at Williams Arena on the University of Minnesota campus starting on Wednesday morning and ending on Saturday night. Are we ready for it?
Perhaps the best surprise story before the state tournament belongs to the Bluejackets of Cambridge-Isanti. They have played underdog in their last two games and will play even bigger underdogs on Wednesday morning against Hopkins. The Bluejackets feature strong big #48 Jana SwansonJanaSwanson
6'0" | PF Cambridge-Isanti | 2020StateMN who has overcome so much adversity to have back to back double-double seasons for the Bluejackets. At guard, it will be the length of #44 Amme SheforgenAmmeSheforgen
5'9" | CG Cambridge-Isanti | 2020StateMN and the “hardest working prospect in Minnesota” #30 Mikayla AumerMikaylaAumer
5'9" | CG Cambridge-Isanti | 2022StateMN who leads the Bluejackets in scoring. Another player to watch for Cambridge-Isanti is senior guard Jackie Olander who has given the Bluejackets three dependable consistent guards in their lineup.