Section Semifinal day preview

One of the finest days of the year as 8 of the 11 metro sections have semifinal doubleheaders tonight. Overall, my picks break down as follows.

14-2 in section 4A
12-1 in section 4AA
14-0 in section 3AAA, 4AAA and 6AAA
20-8 in class 4A (Yuck)

I still have all 11 of my section winner picks alive (and 30 of 32 statewide), but today is where the rubber meets the road. If you had picked high seeds to this point, you'd be 59-12. Holy Angels saves my bacon with their 2 upsets to keep me 1 game ahead.

Top game of the night is Minnehaha vs St. Bernard's in section 4AA's East subsection final. Too bad its the early game at Holy Angels. Minnehaha has really focused on this one since the regular season loss. I'll be very interested to see what adjustments the Redhawks made since the last meeting. The west game should be interesting since Holy Family and Jordan split their 2 MN River Conference meetings. Yuriy Malashenko with 22 points and 25 rebounds for Jordan in a 67-60 win on Feb 27th.

3AAA in Blaine has a couple of very interesting games with Spring Lake Park vs Henry and Fridley vs Columbia Heights. Those games could go either way. Guard play on display all night with Jordan Hughes et al against Shaun Jensen and Isaiah Thomas vs Jacob Thomas in the late game. Heights won both regular season meetings. Isaiah Thomas with 46 in the 1st meeting (10 in the 2nd). Jacob Thomas with 30 in the 2nd meeting (14 in the 1st meeting).

In section 4A, a pair of rematches from games I saw. SW Christian gets MCA on a neutral court after a close loss at MCA at the end of January. New Life is at least a little bit familiar with the surroundings at Heritage (their regular season game was at NLA), but MTS won easily when the teams met in January.

Beyond that, a whole lot of blah. 4AAAA and 5AAAA may have all 4 games be blowouts. 4AAA is just another step toward the inevitable Johnson trip to state. 3AAAA nothing sticks out and 7AAAA is already blah. But Blaine and Andover did split their games this season with Andover winning on their home court on the final day of the season behind 36 from Brett Tester. But Blaine was up 13 at half in that game.