It’s the most wonderful time of the year. 16 jamboree-style girls games last week at the Breakdown Tip-Off, and now 16 jamboree-style girls basketball games at Hamline and White Bear Lake on Friday and 16 more today (Saturday November 30).
Yesterday’s feature game was a win for the visiting Maroons from Dowling Catholic of West DesMoines, Iowa, once known as the playground of Caitlin Clark. Now it’s the playground of a team that could probably win the Minnesota Class AAA title, based on the fact that it beat the 2-time Minnesota AAA champions from Benilde-St. Margaret 78-72. And, they did it without their best player, 5-10 point guard Ava Zedliker, the #2 rated senior in all of Iowa, who is going to play college ball at Creighton.
Her teammates were up to the challenge, and just for the record they include the #41 player in Iowa, 5-9 senior combo guard Layla Trytten, who scored 31 points; the Muller sisters, 6-3 junior Ellie (13) and 6-1 sophomore Katie (18); and a 5-4 backup point guard, Macy Harnden, who is also going to be playing college ball, albeit in D3. Ellie and Katie Muller are rated #4 and #3 in their classes in Iowa, by the way.
And, in a nutshell, Dowling can shoot. They made 7-of-9 shots out of the gate, including 3-of-5 3s, to take leads of 13-4 and 17-7. Benilde picked up the defensive intensity, thank goodness, and held Dowling without a field goal for more than 5 minutes, but the Red Knights made just 1-of-8 during that same period and still trailed 21-11. Benilde especially picked up their ball pressure and forced 27 turnovers, something that would have been highly unlikely had Zedliker been on the court for the Maroons. But she was not, and so the Knights clawed their way back from deficits of 36-20 and 39-23, and 45-32 and 48-36 in the 2nd half, to make it a one-possession game at 52-49 with still 11 minutes to go. Now it was Dowling’s turn to rally and the built a 9-point edge at 62-53 and 67-58, and a 10-point edge at 78-68 before Benilde scored the game’s final basket.
Trytten scored 20 1st half points for Dowling on 8-of-9 shooting including 3-of-3 3s. Katie Muller scored 13 in the 2nd half on 6-of-7 shooting. For the day, my unofficial stats show Dowling shooting 32-of-51 including 7-of-15 3s. Dowling also outrebounded Benilde 30-20 though each side had 9 offensive boards. As mentioned, Dowling had 27 turnovers but Benilde also had 18.
Kendall McGee led Benilde in the 1st half with 9 points. She missed all of last year with a leg injury, and she seemed to run out of gas a bit in the 2nd half, adding just 2 more points. The second half, in fact, was all Zahara Bishop, the 5-10 senior combo guard, who scored 19 points in the half on 8-of-14 shooting.
On Saturday at White Bear, Dowling plays Providence at 1:30, while Benilde plays Hopkins at 6:45. Should be a couple of OK games.