2019 Minnesota Girl's State Tournament - Class A Championship Game Recap - Minneota vs Goodhue 3-16-19

Got down to the Barn in plenty of time today on this cold but sunny St. Patrick's weekend for Championship Saturday at the Minnesota Girl's State Tournament.  The first game on tap on this Saturday afternoon featured the Class A Championship Game featuring top-seeded Minneota and second-seeded Goodhue.  This would be my first look at the Vikings in a while but I knew they were awfully good.  The Wildcats, of course, escaped two close calls thus far here in the state tournament so you knew this one had the makings to be a dandy. 

Both teams would be feeling each other out in the opening minutes and neither could get any separation in the early going with the Vikings clinging to a 3-2 lead at the 15:30 mark.  Perhaps the only blemish thus far from a Goodhue standpoint was that senior guard Kate Opsahl had been tagged for her second foul by the 14:10 mark but Wildcats Head Coach Josh Wieme seemed willing to roll the dice and keep her on the floor.  At the 13:37 mark Minneota senior guard Morgan Kockelman got a score to push the Vikings lead to 5-2 but Goodhue senior post Lexie Lodermeier would get her team on even terms with Minneota with two free throws at the 12:02 mark for a 5-5 game.  Lexie Lodermeier would repeat that feat at the 10:22 mark to keep the game tied at seven a piece.  By this point, Minneota senior post Lydia Sussner had collected her second foul of the day and Vikings Head Coach Chad Johnston was arguably rolling the dice a bit as well by keeping her in.  Still, Minneota got a bit of breathing room when sophomore guard Abby Hennen nailed a "3" from the left wing area with 5:25 left to give the Vikings a 14-9 lead and a jumper from the top by Kockelman with 4:59 left made that lead grow to 16-9.  Sussner; riding those two fouls, got into the paint for a score with 3:42 left that now had Minneota up by nine at 18-9.  Goodhue's Wieme had the benefit of a media timeout to get his squad regrouped but perhaps an even bigger problem for the Wildcats was that Opsahl was now riding with three fouls and Goodhue could ill-afford to lose her.  Minneota's Sussner would soon collect her third foul and Johnston was taking no chances on that front and quickly yanked her to the bench.  That allowed the Wildcats to cut the gap a bit to six points at 20-14 by the halftime break.

Goodhue managed to stay in that six-point range down 22-16 in the first three minutes of the second half but the Vikings' Hennen changed that with a three-point bomb from near the top of the key at the 15:05 mark to expand Minneota's lead to 25-16.  The Wildcats would counter on a nifty steal of a pass at midcourt by Opsahl and her lay-up at the 11:55 mark allowed Goodhue to close the gap to seven points at 27-20 and with 9:00 left, junior guard Arianna Thomforde snuck inside for a lay-up that had reduced the deficit to five points at 27-22 and hope was renewed on the Wildcat front.  But unlike yesterday, Goodhue never could seem to find that one burst that might have turned the tide in this one when they needed it most.  The Wildcats were applying pressure anywhere and everywhere they could but Minneota seemed to be surviving it.  With 4:39 left, Goodhue sophomore guard Torie Rehder fouled out and the Wildcats lost an important three-point shooting threat with her on the bench.  Still, Goodhue was able to get the deficit down to six at 32-26 with 3:30 that offered a ray of hope and they were still trying to trap various Minneota players on their offensive possessions like those mean old raptors in the Jurassic Park movies but on this day, the Vikings cleverly escaped most of those potential disasters.  In a game where defense took center stage, Minneota captured this Class A State Championship Game with a 40-31 victory. 

The final box score shows that Minneota did have the edge on the boards on this day by a 33-27 count and, in a close, low-scoring game such as this where defense does take center stage, that was huge.  Interestingly enough, the Vikings did have more turnovers on this day than the Wildcats did by a 20-15 count and Goodhue did indeed have a 16-9 advantage in points off of turnovers.  In fact, the Wildcats also had a 16-10 advantage in points in the paint as well.  But while Goodhue had a relatively decent day from the charity stripe going 8-10 for 80%, their FG shooting suffered mightily on this day as they finished going 11-46 for 23.9% and, even worse was the fact that the Wildcats were a dismal 1-12 from downtown for only 8.3%.  Needless to say, those are big numbers.  Abby Hennen led the way for the Vikings on this day with her 13 points and senior forward Lizzy Gillingham wasn't far behind with her 11 points.  Goodhue meanwhile relied heavily on Opsahl on this day as she was the only Wildcat player in double figures scoring-wise with her 14 points.  In the Goodhue portion of the post-game press conference, Wieme talked about Minneota's length and their ability to use that to disrupt their offense.  "Well, they have pretty good length at every position and they're very athletic.....They sank off of our outside perimeter and they weren't going to let Lexie (Lodermeier) have much room......And we just couldn't hit enough from the outside to loosen that up."  I asked Wieme about when Opsahl picked up her third foul and how that affected them with what they wanted to do; especially defensively.  "Well, yeah....Kate's a very versatile defensive player but I think it really hurt us offensively......We were stuck on nine for a long time and we just lost rhythm because she's an offensive player that can do so many things; handle the ball, drive to the basket, hit from the outside."  Wieme also added that it was a double-whammy from an energy standpoint as well.  Additionally, Wieme admitted that his team's 31 points on this day is simply not enough to win a state championship game; even in a game dominated by defense.  I also asked Lexie Lodermeier about how she managed to stay out of foul trouble on this day as compared to Friday's game against Menagha and what her personal strategy was for this game.  "I don't want to get into foul trouble at all....So I guard the high post and so I had to stay low and pretty much keep her (Minneota's Sussner) in front, push off or stay behind her....And I knew if I was going to do that, she doesn't force things so I was able to stay out of foul trouble."  Minneota's Johnston admitted during the Vikings' portion of the post-game press conference that their big concern was trying to find a way to neutralize Goodhue's Lexie Lodermeier down low on defense.  "Anytime you have a 6'3" player in the paint it kind of changes things.....so we talked about what we needed to do offensively and defensively.....I just knew that at some point that Goodhue's pressure was going to have to crank up a little bit and we kind of said that if we get a lead; the way we were playing defense, if we just took care of the basketball and didn't turn it over and didn't give up any transition buckets that we would be just fine.....They definitely cranked up the pressure there a little bit and at times we looked good with it and at other times, we looked like we were panicking a little with it.....The key thing is we got the key things done....We hit the free throws at the end of the game when we needed to and we got the 'W'."  Johnston also stressed that it was important for his team to focus on triple penetration, making sure that they clogged the lane down a little bit and that they were there to 'help'.  He added that his squad is not necessarily what you would call an "in your face" type of defense but they're a very smart group defensively.  Johnston added that rebounding was also a big focus in this game as well and the Vikings definitely had the edge on the boards on this Saturday afternoon.