Speaking of Sports

By John Fragodt, Sports Reporter

What a week of Laker sports!

The Minnewaska Area girls basketball team won a pair of Section 3AA Tournament games last week, including a thrilling 42-36 victory over NLS in the sub-section finals, Thursday at SMSU in Marshall.  The student section was in full force at the SMSU game as well as the sub-section semifinal game against KMS at Willmar last Tuesday, giving the Lakers a big boost.

The Minnewaska boys hosted a first-round playoff game against Litchfield, Friday, winning 61-27 with a packed home crowd on hand to witness the action.  The Lakers played one of their best games of the season, building a 36-14 lead by halftime.  That sends the Lakers on to the next round, Tuesday (tomorrow) at Willmar to face Montevideo.

And, three members of the Laker wrestling team were in action at the State Tourney this past weekend. 

Miles Wildman, Chase Smith and Landon Schiffler earned state berths this year with Smith going to state for the fourth-straight year, Wildman for his third-straight season and Schiffler for his second-straight year.  Wildman highlighted the wrestlers’ efforts at state by going 3-1 to place second at 121 pounds.

Yes, that’s a lot of action for one season, let alone for one week.  Way to go Lakers!

What an exciting win by the Lakers during their 42-36 win over NLS.  Minnewaska Area fell to Sauk Centre and NLS earlier in the year to drop to 4-2 overall, but the Lakers have come back to avenge both of those losses and are now 26-3 overall heading into the section finals at SMSU.

My sons qualified to three-straight Section 3AA boys basketball championship games at SMSU in 2005, 2006 and 2007, winning the section title and the state berth that goes with it in 2006, but I have not been back at SMSU since the winter of 2007 so I’m looking forward to reliving some of those great memories as well as making some new ones.

The Lakers will face Fairmont in the championship game.  Fairmont was the second seed in its half of the section, but upset Jackson County Central in the other sub-section finals, 78-46.  Fairmont is 21-7 overall with losses to New Ulm, Windom Area, Marshall, Jackson County Central, St. Peter and Tri-City United (twice).  It will be another big test for the Lakers.

The battle between Minnewaska and NLS was a defensive battle from the start with long periods of scoreless action, brought upon by suffocating defense, especially by the Lakers.  It was one of the best defensive efforts I’ve seen by a high school team.

Minnewaska went four minutes between scores early in the game and again midway through the first half, but was able to keep things close.  NLS meanwhile, scored just two points over the last 7:23 of the first half and went scoreless from the 7:30 mark of the second half until 25 seconds remained.  That’s almost 15 minutes the Lakers held NLS scoreless in key moments of the game.  Wow!

The Lakers will need to pick up their offense a bit if they want to win the section title game, but it’s pretty impressive when you can beat a team like NLS relying almost solely on a strong defense.  In the end, it was the Wildcats that played scared and nervous, while the Lakers appeared poised and in control.  Minnewaska won despite putting up its second-lowest point total of the season (the Lakers scored 40 during a loss to Barnesville).  It was also the 15th time in 29 games the Lakers have held an opponent under 40 points.

Overall, the three basketball games last week were very fun to watch and made me even more proud to be a Laker.  Can the girls clear the final hurdle on the way to a state berth and is the third time (this season) a charm for the boys team?  We’ll find out this week.

Go Lakers!