South Triumphs

#2 posting 5.24.2008
your daily dose of girls basketball news & information

TIGERS ROAR
The Minneapolis South Tigers won the North St. Paul MYAS 17u event today beating three teams. Most of the teams in this tournament were school based teams, but not everyone from the respective schools were there. For example South was missing Tayler Hill and Ameshia Kearney.

The first game featured two teams that finished second in the recent Minnesota State High School tournament--AAAA South and A Barnum. South led most of the first half, but Barnum, behind long range shooting, edged in front 21-19 in the second half with 14:49 to go. That was to be their last points as the Southerners finished with a 23-0 run and Barnum finished with a 18 possession drought.

The second game South beat the Hurricanes handily. However I was watching Fridley beat Barnum 56-29. Fridley earlier had beat the Hurricanes by double figures. In the Fridley/Barnum game the Tigers jumped out to a 19-5 lead as everything was clicking. The one sub Barnum team left a lot of energy on the floor in the South game.

It was a battle of Tigers in the championship. Fridley held an early 7-2 lead, but after that it went South quickly. The Southerners outscored the other Tigers 32-11 the rest of the half and at one point held the Fridley squad scoreless 10 possessions. South triumphed 56-38 in a fairly even second half. Tyisha Smith had 25 points for South in the championship.

I will have detailed out & abouts later in the week, maybe even as early as tomorrow morning. Maybe.

next up: tomorrow morning

More MYAS State Tournament Results

#1 posting 5.20.2008
your daily dose of girls basketball news & information

MORE MYAS STATE TOURNAMENT RESULTS
17u D2
Amber Dvorak, who is pretty dominant at this level, led the Minnesota Gym Rats to the championship 58-36 over the Urban Stars at Hopkins. The Lady Slippers came through the back door and went 5-1 to take third place.

15U D1
Minnesota Stars Jihad (the Lady Cats) beat Fury Blue (Livers) 53-45 for the 15 D1 Championship at Blaine. The Lady Cats have been playing 15U AAU all year (16U MYAS equivalent) but dropped down to play this tournament.

Here is a photo of the Fury Blue Livers.

15U D2
Minnesota Crush, a team made up of mostly 8th graders from the Burnsville area and a couple of players from Chaska and a player from Shakopee, played in the MYAS Spring State Tournament this past weekend at Hopkins. Playing in the 15U Division II group, the Crush defeated Minnetonka (seed 15) and the Rochester Heat (seed 3) to win their pool. In bracket play they defeated the SM Magic (seed 6), then lost to the Lady Katz (seed 2) in the semifinals. In their last game they defeated the number 1 seeded 43 Hoops to take 3rd place in the tournament.
The Lady Lightning beat the Lady Katz 29-28 in the championship.

13u/7th GRADE
Hopkins won the 13u/7th grade MYAS D1 Tournament. Most of the teams were 12U playing in the MYAS state tournament at the 13U/7th grade level. Most of the Hopkins team was part of the traveling state champion team this past winter. The girls are not trying to travel out of town and do the AAU circuit. Most play other spring sports. Former Gopher Richard Coffey is their coach and they did not loose a game all spring.

12u/6th GRADE
The Minnesota Stars (Farview), coached by Percy Wade and Rico Alexander won the 6th Grade Division 1 MYAS State Championships at Benilde-St. Margaret's by beating St. Paul Central 45-24. The teams had played a week earlier in the 11U AAU District Championships with the MN Stars having won that game also. The MN Stars roster includes: Alexis Alexander, Idella Jackson, Madison Lee, Naja Woods, Tonoia Wade, Emily Peters, Kenish Bell, Isieoma Odor, Genevea Adkins, and Rajanee Michaels.
The MN Stars will be playing in the Battle of the Hardwoods and then taking their show on the road with playing at MYAB Summer Kickoff in Wichita, Ks, the Adidas Midwest Girls Classic in Ames, Iowa and then wrapping up what has been a great season, having won 4 out of 5 tournaments so far, at the 11U AAU Nationals in Branson, Missouri.

Thanks to all the readers that submitted reports. It definitely helps out.

next up: more news of the day.

Two Fury Upsets, Rising Sun

#1 posting 5.18.2008
your daily dose of girls basketball news & information

MYAS RESULTS YESTERDAY
The Minnesota Fury 14U Blue (Livers) team had a great first day of the MYAS State Championship, beating three teams by an average margin of 16 points.
MN Fury 14U Blue 53, Thunder 15U Blue 40
MN Fury 14U Blue 59, Midtown Lady Monarchs 45
MN Fury 14U Blue 63, 43 Hoops 15U Carr 42
The Fury were the #8 seed going in as voted by the coaches, so today included "upsets" of #1 seed Monarchs in the quarterfinals and #4 seed 43 Hoops in the semifinals. They will go on to play the winner of the Lady Cats and Metro Stars 14U, who squared off in the other semifinal. The game will take place at Blaine High School at 4:10.

Amber Dvorak played with the Gym Rats 16u team yesterday. She plays with MN Stars Borowicz during AAU games.

NIKE SKILLS CAMP
Tayler Hill and Megan Nipe of NC Heat are at the Skills Camp in Indianapolis this weekend.

RISING SUN
The Connecticut Sun opened the WNBA season with a win. Lindsey Whalen had 11 and Jolene Anderson in her WNBA regular season debut had 8.

SCHOOL CLOSING
Russell, Iowa has seen its last graduating class. Some students will go to Chariton others to Corydon. From the Des Moines Register.

Next up: later today after the MYAS State tournaments

Four Gyms, Four Games

#3 posting 4.12.2008
your daily dose of girls basketball news & information

Today I attended four different games in four different gyms involving three different tournaments.

I got my start at St. Louis Park where I saw the MYAS 16u tournament. In pool play it was MN Thunder over Prior Lake Hardwood Heat. (Heat is the name of at least four different teams....so far...this year. It is this year's Stars). The Thunder roared from behind the three point line in a 49-30 win. The Thunder hit seven 3s when I was watching. I got there 8 minutes late with the Thunder up 12-7. After that it started raining 3s.

Then it was off to 43 Hoops Academy for a civil war battle between Metro Stars Black and Metro Stars White in the 17/19 MYAS tournament. White led by two at half and the contest was tied five times in the second, the last time coming at 26 all. Every movement up the floor, every pass, every shot was contested. Loose balls were treated like gold. The Blacks finished with a 12-5 run to win the pool play game 38-31.

After seeing Stars I hit the road for Sauk Rapids and more Stars. This time it was MN Stars Eckmann vs ECI in the quarterfinals of the Comet's tournament Platinum Division. ECI led in the second half 31-27 before the Stars mounted their comeback with a 17-7 run to win 44-38. Helping out with ECI was Kelsey Jacobson of Moorhead. This tournament is the only time this version of ECI will be on the floor.

Next up was the Comet Platinum Semis at the Whitney Center in St. Cloud. In that contest the Comets beat X Factor 2 63-52. The Comets led from start to finish, but X Factor kept hanging around cutting 8 point margins to 3 twice in the first half. In the second half the Comets pushed their lead out to 13 and again X Factor sliced into that lead to 6, but never got closer.

I will report in depth out & abouts during the upcoming week.

Next up: tomorrow morning.