Girls Basketball: State Tournament Advance

Girls basketball players will take center court this week when the Minnesota State High School League’s Girls Basketball State Tournament begins a four-day run at the University of Minnesota and the Gangelhoff Center on the Concordia (St. Paul) campus. Thirty-two teams have qualified for the annual event, which has been played since 1974. Four champions will be crowned on Championship Saturday on March 18.

Here is a look at the quarterfinal schedule along with some newsworthy notes:

Wednesday’s quarterfinals

Class AAAA

At Williams Arena

• Roseville (19-10) vs. No. 1 Hopkins (26-2), 10 a.m.
• No. 5 Lakeville North (22-7) vs. No. 4 Stillwater (25-5), noon
• Eagan (19-10) vs. No. 2 St. Michael-Albertville (26-3), 2 p.m.
• Centennial (19-10) vs. No. 3 Eden Prairie (20-9), 4 p.m.

Class AAA

At Maturi Pavilion

• Marshall (21-9) vs. No. 1 Becker (25-3), 10 a.m.
• No. 5 Grand Rapids (26-2) vs. No. 4 Stewartville (26-2), noon
• DeLaSalle (23-6) vs. No. 2 Benilde-St. Margaret’s (23-6), 2 p.m.
• Hill-Murray (17-11) vs. No. 3 Alexandria Area (24-4), 4 p.m.

 Class AA

At Williams Arena

• Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial (29-1) vs. No. 1 Providence Academy (27-2), 6 p.m.
• No. 5 Minnehaha Academy (22-7) vs. No. 4 New London-Spicer (28-1), 8 p.m.

At Maturi Pavilion

• Crosby-Ironton (23-7) vs. No. 2 Goodhue (27-3), 6 p.m.
• Perham (26-3) vs. No. 3 Albany (28-1), 8 p.m.

 Thursday’s quarterfinals

Class A

At Maturi Pavilion

• Minneota (21-8) vs. No. 1 Mountain Iron-Buhl (27-3), 11 a.m.
• No. 5 Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa (25-4) vs. No. 4 Underwood (26-3), 1 p.m.
• Badger/Greenbush-Middle River (26-3) vs. No. 2 Hayfield (28-3), 3 p.m.
• United Christian Academy (14-11) vs. No. 3 BOLD (24-5), 5 p.m.

State Tournament Notes

• Stewartville’s state tournament debut means the Hiawatha Valley Conference has had all of its conference members qualify for the Girls Basketball State Tournament. The Hiawatha Valley joins the Lake Conference, the Central Lakes Conference and the West Central Conference as the only leagues to have all of its member schools play in the event.
• Providence Academy, the defending Class AA champion and favored to repeat, this season has defeated the top seeds in the other classes.
• The top seeds in the Class AAAA field --- Hopkins, St. Michael-Albertville and Eden Prairie --- are members of the Lake Conference.
• Crosby-Ironton’s Tori Oehrlein and Providence Academy’ Maddyn Greenway are the only players, boy or girl, to reach the 2,000-point mark in their freshmen seasons. Oehrlein has 2,226 career points and Greenway has 2,193. If they were to face one another this week, it would be for the Class AA championship on Saturday.
• Hopkins is making its ninth consecutive state tournament appearance, tops across all four classes.
• On Feb. 17, Providence Academy recorded a 126-94 victory over Minnehaha Academy in an Independent Metro Athletic Conference game. The 220 combined points qualifies for entry in the national record book.
• New London-Spicer’s Mike Dreier has led the Wildcats to the state tournament for the 20^th time in his legendary coaching career. He has 1,037 career victories to become Minnesota’s all-time leader in high school coaching victories. His teams have won 20 or more games for 11 consecutive seasons.
• Since seeding began in 2007, only two unseeded teams have won state championships: St. Michael-Albertville (Class AAA) in 2009 and Win-E-Mac (Class A) in 2014. Wondering about a connection? St. Michael-Albertville head coach Kent Hamre is from Erskine, the “E” in Win-E-Mac.
• The last year that all No. 1 seeds won the state tournament was 2018: Lyle/Pacelli (Class A); Sauk Centre (Class AA); Robbinsdale Cooper (Class AAA) and Eastview (Class AAAA).