Irondale vs Maple Grove Section 5AAAA Quarterfinal

Was at Maple Grove High School on this early March night to take in one of the opening round games of the Section 5 Class AAAA tourney; this one between host Maple Grove and visiting Irondale.  Maple Grove, of course, one of the top teams in the section and the defending champion of the Section 5 group that included an appearance at the State Tournament last season and upstart Irondale, trying to take that next step. 

This game actually started out pretty close and, despite some three-point bombs by standouts Ellen Edison and Stephanie Davison early on, Irondale hung tough.  I was eventually joined by Bethel assistant coach Dwight Nelson about midway through the first half and that's when Maple Grove started to put some distance between themselves and their opponent as they gradually widened the gap anywhere between seven and ten points and kept it in the double digit margin when Davison drained a "3" from the top of the key with just a minute and a half left before the intermission that allowed the home team to go into the locker room with a cozy 34-20 lead. 

Irondale refused to throw in the towel and did manage to scrap their way back into things early on in the second half.  Sophomore Stephanie Meyer unexpectedly knocked down a "3" off the glass and then senior big gun Megan Wojchik scored twice and fellow senior Nia Hall put in a bucket at the 15:36 mark to cut the Maple Grove lead to 36-30.  But this senior-laden Maple Grove squad responded with authority thanks to both Edison and Stephanie Davison who, along with fellow senior Anna Gerdes, are the unquestioned leaders on this team.  They quickly got the lead back up to double digits less than a minute later and got it to thirteen points when Edison drained yet another "3" from the top of the key at the 14:09 mark.  A bit later, Stephanie Davison swished a "3" from the left corner to push the lead to sixteen points and Maple Grove was on its way to opening up a twenty point lead that Irondale simply was unable to recover from.  There was an anxious moment at the 2:55 mark when Gerdes, who suffered from a multitude of injuries over the course of the season, went down when her (already) injured ankle went out on her again.  Still, Maple Grove cruised to an easy 74-55 victory on this night.