Bears Claw Greyhounds
Clearbrook-Gonvick and Fosston met head to head in the semi-final round of the East Sub-Section 8A tournament at the Ralph Engelstad Arena in Thief River Falls on Saturday afternoon. Fosston had rather handily defeated Clearbrook- Gonvick by 26 points back on January 7, but the Bears have been playing very well lately, having won 12 of their last 13 contests, their only loss in that stretch being a 3 point 61-58 defeat at the hands of the Pine River-Backus Tigers.
In the other semi-final bracket, the Red Lake Warriors and the Walker-Hackensack-Akeley Wolves faced off to start Saturday’s schedule with a noon start.
Just two weeks ago, the Warriors had trounced the Wolves by 43 points. Coupled with Fosston’s early season 26 point win over Clearbrook-Gonvick, the odds makers would have to predict that Fosston should meet Red Lake in the Sub-section championship game next week.
So much for the odds makers. In the early match, the 5th seeded W-H-A Wolves pulled off what may be the upset of the Minnesota Class A brackets by upending the top seeded Warriors with a 5 point 51-46 win. That set the stage for a no holds barred battle between the number 2 seed Greyhounds, and the number 3 seed Bears. Let’s go back a couple years to further set the stage. A little “Revenge is sweet” element enters in here. Clearbrook- Gonvick, in the 2012-13 season, had a team of seasoned veterans who had played together since grade school. They compiled an excellent 24-3 record. They’d lost twice to eventual Section 5 champion Pine River-Backus, and once to Win-E-Mac. The Bears figured this was their year, the best chance they’d get to go to state. They desperately wanted another shot at Win- E-Mac, and they came into the Sub-section championship game against the only thing that stood in their way, the Fosston Greyhounds, whom they had beaten by 15 points earlier in the year.
The Greyhounds derailed their train, and prevented that trip to state they had so dearly coveted. It stung. It stung big time, and those folks up in that Clearbrook-Gonvick country aren’t real good at forgetting stuff like that. They remembered it when they came to the Ralph in Thief River Falls on this pleasant Saturday afternoon in March of 2015. As pleasant as the day might have been outdoors, the Bears proposed to make things decidedly unpleasant for the Fosston Greyhounds indoors. And they did.
Fosston started out flat and tentative, and the Bears took advantage of that to run quickly out to a nice lead. Abby Swanson did her best to keep her team in the game, scoring Fosston’s first 8 points, and hitting the bucket for 11 in the first half, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Bears at bay, and they carried a 13 point 27-14 lead into the locker room at the intermission.
They came right back into the fray and started the second half with a forced turnover and a bucket to lead by 15 points. Abby finally got the fire lit under the Greyhounds, and she led the Hounds in a 19-1 run to set the Bears back on their heels and take a 3 point lead at 33-30. Just when it looked like the Greyhounds might pull out and run away with it, the fire fizzled, and the Bears poured in the next 6 points to take the lead back. From there it was all downhill for the Greyhounds, and the Bears defied the odds makers by romping home with a convincing 11 point win at 58-47.
One wouldn’t have enough fingers to count the factors and reasons for the outcome of this game, but a couple fingers worth bear mention. In the first meeting of the year between these teams, Liz Bodensteiner had some early foul trouble and sat out a good share of the game. Liz wasn’t able to play a major role in that first game, but she certainly did play a major role in the second meeting, as she tore Fosston’s defense apart with 24 points, including 6 for 6 from the free throw line. Madison Stenzel burned the Hounds with three long distance bombing runs to account for 9 of her 21 points. On the Fosston side of the court, Abby Swanson’s 26 point performance put her at the head of the class in the scoring department, but the Greyhounds didn’t get much scoring from other sources, as those 26 points constituted more than half of Fosston’s total point production. In spite of the loss, Fosston held a slight edge on the stat sheets in every category but scoring. 14 turnovers by the Greyhounds compared to 20 for the Bears. Rebounds were close, with Fosston pulling down 25 to Clearbrook-Gonvick’s 24. Fosston hit a very credible 75 per cent from the free throw line at 12 for 16, compared to CG’s 68 per cent at 13 for 19.
Scoring stats for CG, aside from Bodensteiner’s 24 and Stenzel’s 21, include 6 by Hanna Lavin, 3 for Rachel Spray and 2 each for Brynn Hetland and Alison Johnson.
Fosston augmented Swanson’s 26 with 9 points from Emily Curfman, 5 for Tess Hubbard, including a trey, 3 for Kaili Schmidt on another trey, and 2 apiece for Tara Viken and Katie Nelson.
With both the Number 1 and Number 2 seeds mowed down on Saturday, the 8A East Sub-section championship game will feature the Number 3 seeded Bears of Clearbrook-Gonvick, and the number 5 seeded Wolves of Walker-Hackensack-Akeley at 6:00 PM on Tuesday evening, at the Ralph Engelstad Arena in Thief River Falls.
On the other side of the section, the defending state champion Win-E-Mac Patriots will square off in the 8A West Sub-section championship with the Stephen-Argyle Storm. This game will follow the W-H-A vs Clearbrook-Gonvick game Tuesday evening at 7:45 PM.
The winners of these two contests will meet later this week for the Section 8A championship and a trip to the state tourney.