Halfway there.

The Minnewaska Area girls basketball team held KMS to eight second-half points on the way to a 66-29 victory during the sub-section semifinals, Saturday night at Montevideo High School.

The win wasn’t as easy as it seems though as the Lakers trailed  for much of the first half, including a 14-11 deficit with 9:14 left in the first half and a 18-16 disadvantage with 4:51 left in the opening stanza before Megan Thorfinnson hit a 3-pointer to give the Lakers the lead for good.

It was all Minnewaska Area from then on as the Lakers outscored the Saints 50-11 over the final 23 minutes of the game.  Wow!

The win advances the Lakers to the sub-section finals where Minnewaska will face longtime nemesis NLS for a berth in the Section 3AA finals at 8 p.m., Tuesday (tomorrow) at Willmar.  NLS beat Paynesville in the other sub-section semifinal, 58-31.

The section championship game is set for Friday, March 8 at SMSU in Marshall.  In the other half of the bracket are Fairmont and Windom Area.

The Lakers won the section opener the previous week over Litchfield, 71-38.  Minnewaska Area goes into the sub-section championship game with a 20-8 overall record, which included a 10-2 mark in the WCC to finish second behind Sauk Centre (12-0).

Minnewaska Area also beat the Saints in a non-conference game three weeks earlier, 69-45.  KMS won the Camden North Conference this year and finished the season with exactly 20 victories.

The only senior on this year’s Minnewaska girls basketball roster is Avery Fier.  Winning 20 games in high school basketball is not easy so to reach 20 victories shows what a great season the Lakers are having.

Waska 66, KMS 29

The Lakers started off slow against the Saints before catching fire with about five minutes left in the first half.

Before that, the Lakers had only four points through the game’s first four minutes and only 11 points midway through the first half.

Play was very physical, but that allowed the Lakers to play a very aggressive defense, which eventually forced KMS into 31 turnovers.

Megan Thorfinnson, who ended the game with a game-high 18 points along with two rebounds and five steals, kept the Lakers in the game in the first half.

Minnewaska finally took the lead for good on a 3-pointer by Thorfinnson to give the Lakers a 19-18 lead with 4:51 left in the first half.  Through that point in the game, Thorfinnson had scored 12 of the Lakers’ first 19 points, while Minnewaska’s other top two scorers, Sydney Dahl and Addy Kath, had combined for one point.

That all changed coming out of a timeout with 4:02 left in the first half and the Lakers still clinging to the 19-18 lead.

First, Dahl hit a step-back 3-pointer and then, after a basket by the Saints, Olivia Danielson went in for a nice layup and Avery Fier connected on a shot inside on a Laker fastbreak.

It didn’t stop there, though, as Addy Kath hit a layup and Dahl scored off an offensive rebound to push the Laker lead to 30-21 at halftime.

KMS continued to struggle on offense in the second half.  While the Lakers were increasing their point total to 39 with two 3-pointers by Thorfinnson and another by Kath, the Saints didn’t score their first points of the second half until 12:17 remained in the game.

The Minnewaska lead was 39-23 by that time and KMS would get no closer the rest of the game.  The Lakers led 56-29 late in the game before a 3-pointer by Fier keyed a 10-0 run to end the game.

Two wins down and two more to go to reach state.

Keys to the victory were 20 steals, 31 KMS turnovers and 9-of-21 shooting from three-point range.  In fact, the Lakers shot 42 percent, which was almost as good as their free-throw shooting percentage of 50 percent (9-of-18).

Dahl ended the game with 12 points, three assists, three blocked shots, nine rebounds and a lot of bumps and bruises during the very rough game.

Addy Kath added nine points, six boards and six steals while leading the Lakers’ full-court defensive pressure.  She was always two places at once and was the leader of a defense which didn’t take any time off for 36 minutes.

Lauryn Ankeny totaled eight points, two assists, two rebounds and two steals, while Avery Fier had seven points and two assists, and Jayda Kolstoe had seven points, four rebounds and two steals.

For KMS, Acelynn Hacker led the way with 11 points, while Emily Wagner added seven and Mamie Luft had four points and 12 rebounds.

Also scoring for the Lakers, who held an opponent to 40 or less points for the 12th time this year, were Alia Randt with two points, four assists, four rebounds and four steals, Olivia Danielson with two points and two boards, and Kendall Danielson with one point.  Minnewaska Area has also held four of its opponents under 30 points this season.

Minnewaska 66, KMS 29

KMS (20-9) 21 8 — 29

Waska (20-8) 30 36 — 66

WASKA stats:  24-69 FG (9-21 3pt); 9-18 FT; 13 assists; 5 blocked shots; 31 rebounds; 20 steals; 14 fouls; 15 turnovers . . . Scoring:  Megan Thorfinnson 18, Sydney Dahl 12, Addy Kath 9, Lauryn Ankeny 8, Avery Fier 7, Jayda Kolstoe 7, Olivia Danielson 2, Alia Randt 2, Kendall Danielson 1. . . Rebounding:  Dahl 9, Kath 6, Kolstoe 4, Randt 4, Ankeny 2, O. Danielson 2, Thorfinnson 2 . . . Assists:  Randt 4, Dahl 3, Ankeny 2, Fier 2 . . . Steals:  Kath 6, Thorfinnson 5, Randt 4, Kolstoe 2, Ankeny 2 . . . Blocks:  Dahl 3

KMS stats:   Scoring:  Acelynn Hacker 11, Emily Wagner 7, Mamie Luft 4, Leah Wagner 3, Savannah Petersen 2, Sophia Oerter 2. . . Rebounding:  Luft 12 . . . Other stats not available

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