The MIAC closed out its regular season yesterday (Saturday, February 22). Bethel, St. Ben’s and St. John’s concluded their seasons at Bethel, where Bethel and St. John’s each finished with a share of 1st place, just not with each other.
The Bethel women beat a scrappy St. Ben’s 78-66 to share the women’s title with Gustavus Adolphus at 17-1. Bethel gets the #1 seed on a tie-breaker. Meanwhile, St. John’s beat the Bethel men 89-62 to share the men’s title, also with Gustavus, at 15-1. In this case, Gustavus is the #1 seed, also based on a tie-breaker. St. Ben’s moves into the playoffs as a #5 seed, while the Bethel men finished out of the playoffs with a disappointing 5-11 record. They started 5-1 but finished with 10 straight losses.
The MIAC playoffs begin this Tuesday, but for 11 of the 23 MIAC teams, the 2024-2025 season is already over.
Bethel Women 78 St. Ben’s 66
Bethel-St. Ben’s looked like a mismatch early on, with Bethel leading 16-7 after an 8-0 run, and 20-12 at the quarter break. But the main feature of the 1st quarter was that the officials seemed to enjoy blowing their whistles a little too much. The fouls were clearly going to be piling up before all was said and done.
But St. Ben’s returned the favor by winning the 2nd quarter by the same 20-12 margin, and so the game was tied at 32-all at intermission. St. Ben’s took its first lead since 2-0 at 23-22 at 4:46 of the 2nd on Kira Young’s 4th basket of the game, and the final 12 scores of the 1st half all resulted in ties or lead changes. Olivia Boily took over for the Bennies with 5 points in the final 3 minutes.
The Bennies opened the 2nd half with a 3 by Lauren Arnold off of her own offensive rebound, and St. Ben’s had its biggest lead of the game at 35-32. But, now it was Bethel’s turn to run and, indeed, they ripped off an 18-5 run to pull away from a 41-all tie. Macey Littlefield scored 10 3rd quarter points including a pair of dagger 3s at mid-quarter plus a home run steal, while Elly Schmitz, who shockingly scored just 2 points in the 1st half due to a bit of foul trouble, scored 8 3rd quarter points including 2 off the offensive glass. Bethel scored a total of 29 points in the quarter to lead 63-48.
Still, St. Ben’s was not done. They got back within single digits at 67-58 at 5 minutes, then 70-62 and 72-64 though that was with time running out. Schmitz scored 4 more buckets in the 4th to keep the Royals safely out ahead. Still, 1-for-6 FT shooting by the Royals from about 5:30 to about 2:00 helped keep things close. Ironically, St. Ben’s committed 23 fouls and Bethel 17, but the Bennies shot 25 FT (making 18) to Bethel’s 23 (making just 13). The Bennies Young, Megan Morgan and Emily Crandall all finished the game with 4 fouls.
Schmitz finished with 19 points, 17 of them in the 2nd half, plus a game-high 11 rebounds. Littlefield added 15 points for Bethel, Lydia Hay 13 against her former teammates, and Anna Garfield 10. Kira Young led all scorers with 21 for the Bennies, while Lauren Arnold, Olivia Boily, Sophia Jonas and Megan Morgan all joined Young in scoring in double figures.
Bethel outshot St. Ben’s 48% to 41%, and won the battles of the turnovers and the offensive boards. Bethel scored 23 points off St. Ben’s turnovers and 17 off the offensive glass, while St. Ben’s managed 14 and 9. Bethel won the battle of the bench, too, with 30 bench points to just one bench point for the Bennies.
St. Ben’s travels to Concordia Tuesday night for the 1st round of the MIAC playoffs, and #1 seed Bethel will get the winner of that game on Thursday night.
St. John’s 89 Bethel Men 62
St. John’s put on a show, going 12 deep to run away from a Bethel team that began the year at 11-4 and 5-1 in the conference, then finished with 10 straight losses. The Royals Payton Thomsen is listed as the MIAC’s 2nd leading scorer with 19 ppg, but he did not play in the Royals final 5 games. On February 13, he posted this on X. “After discussing it with my family I have decided to leave the Bethel basketball team for the remainder of the year. I will be hitting the transfer portal for my senior year.” The Royals’ skid began with Thomsen in the lineup for 5 of those losses, however.
But, wait, this ought to be about the Johnnies. As I said, they put on a show. Early on it was guard Kooper Vaughn hitting a pair of 3s for a 6-0 lead, another to make it 16-7 and a 4th that made it 39-17. Then, when the Johnnies went to their bench it became a dunk-fest with 6-7 Luke Budzyn dunking on an alley-oop from Luke Healy at 8:36 and off the offensive glass at the buzzer to make it 50-27 at the half. Earlier he had grabbed an O-board and fed Healy for a 3.
The Johnnies shot 60% for the half and 57% on 3s, as Bethel could not get a stop to save its life.
The 2nd half was a merciful 39-35 in favor of the Johnnies. The Johnnies outshot the Royals 53% to 39% for the game. They dominated the offensive glass 12-3 with 22 2nd chance points to 3. Vaughn finished with 15 points, Blake Berg 14 and Ryan Thissen 13. Connor Schwob had 6 points and 13 boards, while guards Zach Longueville and Luke Healy had 11 assists between them. Johnnies coach Pat McKenzie went to his bench early and often.
The Royals were led by Adam Mattes with 16 points, Nick Burke with 14, JT Schradle with 11 and Blake Schmitz with 10. Caden Boettcher, the Royals’ only senior, led with both 5 boards and 5 assists but closed out his career with just one point.
The Johnnies will now await the winner of Tuesday’s Concordia at Hamline 1st round playoff game. The semi-final will be at St. John’s on Thursday.
MIAC Playoffs Summary
Men
Tuesday Feb. 25 5 p.m. Concordia at Hamline
Tuesday Feb. 25 7 p.m. Augsburg at Carleton
Thursday Feb. 27 5 p.m. Carleton or Augsburg at Gustavus
Thursday Feb. 27 7 p.m. Hamline or Concordia at St. John’s
Saturday March 1 7 p.m. Final at high seed
Women
Tuesday Feb. 25 7 p.m. St. Ben’s at Concordia
Tuesday Feb. 25 7 p.m. St. Mary’s at Hamline
Thursday Feb. 27 7 p.m. Concordia or St. Ben’s at Bethel
Thursday Feb. 27 8 p.m. Hamline or St. Mary’s at Gustavus
Saturday March 1 3 p.m. Final at high seed
Note the opportunity to catch a playoff doubleheader at Hamline on Tuesday night and at Gustavus on Saturday.
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