January 10
The Cards were hosting Tartan, a school in Oakdale, a suburb St. Paul. Ordinarily that would be quite a treat for Alex to host a Twin Cities school. But the Titans were coming in with a 1 – 10 record so the game didn’t figure to be close against the now 12 – 3 Cards. And it wasn’t . . .
[Giving the JV a little shout out here . . . ]
[A harbinger of the varsity game . . . ]
[I’ll start with a little treat. A video that was actually shot early in the 2nd half will give you an idea of the overall flow of the game . . . ]
[Mia McGrane in pre-game warm-ups . . . ]
[Ditto for Ella Grove . . . ]
[The two seniors would lead the Cards in this game . . . ]
[Coach Kohler chats with, I believe, the Titans first-year coach . . . ]
[Ella in the team’s final warm-up drill . . . ]
[Team intros: Jaya Hatlestad (3) . . . ]
[Mia (5) . . . ]
[Ella (11) . . . ]
[Some fist bumps are longer than others . . . ]
[Alayna Strand (25) . . . ]
[Lilly Horn (33) . . . ]
[School photographer Mark Ripley shooting 180 degrees opposite me . . . ]
[I think something to the effect: Beat the Titans . . . ]
[Alayna readies for tip-off . . . ]
[Up, up and away . . . ]
[I don’t remember who got it . . . ]
[The game began. We did not deploy our usual full-court press (probably thinking that would be overkill) with Alayna at the point. With a straight man-to-man, Mia would would pick up the Titan point guard shortly after she crossed midcourt. Then Mia would exercise her natural theft tendencies – I believe she hit double digits in steals . . . ]
[Lilly and Alayna . . . ]
[Leading to a double-team?]
[Jaya brings it up . . . ]
[Ella with low post defense – she’s not averse to jumping an interior pass . . . ]
[With her length and quickness, Alayna is a terror on exterior defense . . . ]
[Swish-swish – Ella made all her free throws, barely grazing the rim . . . ]
[I’ve mentioned before, she’ll be playing D2 basketball at Mary next year . . . ]
[A Mia steal . . . ]
[First knock the ball loose with pickpocket hands . . . ]
[Then dive to save it . . . ]
[Ella either shot this from underneath or is positioned for a rebound . . . ]
[Summer Gerhardt (35), the 3rd senior, played good significant minutes despite being somewhat hobbled by her wrapped knee . . . ]
[That’s Myah Kremer (15) in rebounding position. She was a member of our 4 x 800 relay team that as I recall finished 3rd in the state . . . ]
[New members on the floor here are Cate Bloom (21) Mataya Hoelscher (23). They are part of the usual rotation of probably 10 players in most games. In games like this when it gets out of hand, all 20 players suited get playing time . . . ]
[Here Ella and Mataya display defensive rebounding block out positions . . . ]
[Looks like Ella got it . . . ]
[And we’ll finish game action, for no particular reason, with Cate running the baseline.]
[The Super came for her first game in at least two years. She doesn’t not like close games because then she can’t sleep; she does not like blowouts because she feels sorry for the losing team. She was empathetic for the Titans . . . ]
[We just watched the game in the 2nd half . . . ]
[Except for the bench and crowd shot . . . ]
[Who’s next?]
We’re going to turn this team around 360 degrees. ~ Jason Kidd
Up Next: Gopher women’s hockey
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