I watched the Northfield Raider girls clobber the Winona Winhawks 87-27 Saturday (February 18). There’s been a remarkable reversal of fortunes between these 2 teams. Just year ago, Winona went 21-7 including 17-4 good for 2nd in the Big 9 while Northfield went 7-20, and 5-16, good for 10th in the conference, Winona beat Northfield twice , 76-46 and 62-45, though both of those games together did not add up to the 60-point margin of victory and defeat that we saw yesterday.
Historically, these 2 teams are pretty comparable. Winona finished 2nd in the Class AAA state tournament in 2017, losing to Holy Angels in the final, while Northfield finished 2nd to Robbinsdale Cooper in 2018. In the 6 years from 2019 to 2024, Winona went 40-85 in the Big 9, Northfield 43-81. Northfield swept 6 games between the 2 schools from 2019 to 2021, while Winona won 5 of 6 from 2022 to last year. Northfield won twice by more than 30 points, Winona once, but there was never a 40 point margin, much less 50 or 60 points.
But 6 of Winona’s top 9 players last year were seniors, and their best player, now-10th grade point guard Alivia Bell transferred, improbably enough to Hopkins, where she immediately became the Royals starting point guard. Only Adriana Brenengen and Brittany Lee returned, and they’ve increased their scoring averages from a combined 7 ppg to just 11 ppg between them. Brenengen, now a senior, is tied for the team lead in scoring with sophomore Savannah Berg and junior Else Graner with just those 6 ppg. The 4 of them scored just 20 points among them yesterday. From 21-7 a year ago, Winona is now 0-15 after its loss to Northfield.
Northfield, meanwhile, is suddenly awash in excellent young talent. They started the year at 0-2 but since then they are 9-3, all in conference games. They do it with a balanced team approach, moving and sharing the ball, moving without the ball, and pressuring the ball effectively on defense. 6 different girls score 6 ppg or more, and 4 different girls have led the team in scoring. No one player has yet to score as many as 20 points in one game, as far as I’m aware.
Their leading scorer both last year (10 ppg) and this (13 ppg) is 5-8 junior shooting guard and 3-point sniper Grace Mostad. She matched her average yesterday with 3 3-pointers and a pair of 2’s. Kate Sand is a 5-11 junior post who has increased her scoring from 8 ppg last year to 12 this year. Yesterday, she was able to dominate Winona inside and scored a game-high 19 points on 6 2-pointers and 7-of-8 FT. Also scoring in double figures, but doing so off the bench, was sophomore wing Sydney Livingston. She scored 10 points on a pair of 3s, a dribble drive and a pair of throws. She only finished the one dribble drive but her quick first step was impressive.
Callie Lynch, a tiny freshman point guard, is a big part of the Northfield story. She started the year on the JV, then moved up to the varsity after those 1st 2 losses, then joined the starting lineup, I think it was against Faribault in game #4. She has now led the Raiders in scoring 4 times with a high of 19. They didn’t need her to score yesterday and so she scored just on a pair of 3s. But, she handles and protects the ball, runs the offense, hits the 3, and provides the defensive pressure on the ball. The 2 big differences between Northfield and Winona yesterday–and they added up to 60 points, remember–were turnovers and shooting percentage. I didn’t chart turnovers but I’m sure Winona had 25 to 30 of them, or more, many of them at the top of the key where Lynch often met the ball.
Secondly, Winona couldn’t make a shot. When they were able to move the ball around and to get an open shot, they just couldn’t convert. If you had watched any 2 or 3-minute segment of the game, you might have thought that Northfield would win by 20, not 60, because surely Winona would hit some of those open shots. but, no, it didn’t happen. Winona was competent at running their offense and creating good shots, well, except for the turnovers. But that (60) is what the accumulation of turnovers and missing shots even when open eventually added up to.
It was largely the result of those turnovers that Northfield romped out to a 21-1 lead after just 6 minutes. Later it was 37-4 and then 51-12 at the half as Sand scored 15 of her 19 points.
The Big 9
Continuing with a little bit of Big 9 history–the point being that Northfield and Winona are historically comparable programs–the Winona girls have just 2 Big 9 basketball titles (2000, 2017) in some 50 years of girls basketball. Northfield (2018) has just the one, and even now Northfield remains in just 4th place. So, no, neither has been much of a power. Rochester Mayo leads with 18 girls basketball conference titles, Owatonna and Rochester John Marshall have 10, Mankato East has 9, and Austin has 6, and those 5 account for 53 of 62 titles. Meanwhile, over a period now of 97 years, Austin has 20 boys basketball titles, Red Wing 16, Rochester John Marshall 15, Mankato (old Mankato high) and Rochester Mayo 10, Faribault 9, Mankato East and Owatonna 7, Mankato West 6, Albert Lea and Winona 5, old Rochester high 3, Northfield just 2, and Rochester Century 0. At the city level, Rochester leads Mankato with a total of 28 to 23, while Austin has those 20. Among the girls, Rochester has 29 while nobody else has more than 10.
In all sports, all-time, Winona is 6th (by school) with 112 titles, Northfield just 11th with 64, but of course Northfield left the Big 9 for 45 years from 1969 to 2014 (as did Red Wing) in favor of the now-defunct Missota Conference. The city of Rochester (old Rochester high, Mayo, John Marshall and Century) have more than 500 titles, or about 40 percent of them all. Mankato (old Mankato high, plus -East and West) has 261, Owatonna 185 and Austin 160. Winona’s 112 are 5th (by city) while Northfield’s 64 are 8th (by city). Only Red wing with 53 has less. Rochester and Mankato have 763, everybody else has 780. New Prague wanted to join the Big 9 a few years ago but was turned away, as it would have made for an odd number of teams. Too bad.
Returning to Girls Hoops
Then there’s this. The Big 9 plays a ton of conference games, but teams are allowed to play different numbers thereof, as follows. The convention nowadays is just to list conference standings by how many wins you’ve got. I’m old fashioned. I’m gonna list them by their winning percentage.
1. Red Wing 10-1 conference, 13-2 overall, #9 QRF (AAA). They’ve got 11 more conference games scheduled for a total of 22. 4 of those are against top 5 teams, 3 of those on the road. If they lose only to top 5 teams on the road, they’ll finish 18-4 (.818).
2. Rochester Mayo 8-1 and 11-4, #20 QRF (AAAA). They’ve got 10 more conference games for a total of 19. 4 are against the top 5, 2 of those on the road. They get Red Wing at home. But, the fact is that Mayo is the best team in the Big 9. They alone among the Big 9 have played a big-time statewide schedule, with losses to Prior Lake, Orono and Lakeville North. It says here they’ll win 9 out of 10 to finish at 17-2 (.895). In that scenario, I would assume that Mayo is the champion but, again, nowadays lots of folks list the conference standings just base on the number of wins…?
3. Austin 8-2, 12-3, #16 QRF (AAA). Austin has 10 more conference games for a total of 20, 4 of them against the top 5, and 3 of those at home. I figure they lost to Mayo at home and at Northfield to finish 16-4 (.800).
4. Northfield 9-3, 9-5, #22 QRF (AAA). They’ve also got 10 more conference games, 4 against the top 5, 3 of those at home. I figure they lose to Mayo and at Red Wing to finish 17-5 (.773).
5. Owatonna 8-3, 11-4, #21 QRF (AAAA). They’ve got 11 conference games left, also 4 against the top 5, with 3 on the road. I figure they lose the road games to finish 16-6 (.727).
Then in the post-season, Mayo and Owatonna will try to challenge Lakeville North who has won the Section 1AAAA title (I think) 10 times in the past 11 years.
Meanwhile, Section 1AAA will be a free-for-all. This is the only section in the state (Class AAA or AAAA) where a team of Northfield’s caliber could get a #5 seed, but that’s where they are right now. That would mean a road trip to Stewartville in the 1st round and, if they won that game, a trip to Red Wing for the semis. And if they won that game, there could be a return trip to Austin, where Northfield made its biggest noise so far with a 63-41 win. The fact is that Northfield would be an underdog in all of those 3 games, but all of these teams have had their ups and downs and anything could happen.
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