PHD Playoff Central (ND): Last Saturday of February
All around the state today there are huge District semi-final match-ups pitting some of the better Class B teams against one another. PHD Playoff Central gets your ready for tonight, and looks at last night as well.
PHD Playoff Central. Last night there were ten 4/5 games in District play. Half the games were won by the four seeds, the other half won by the five seeds. MLS crushed Glenburn, Parshall won by six over North Shore, Burke County and Big Josh moved on, and Napoleon beat South Border by one in the closet game of the night. Sophomore Eric Woods scored an important 20 for Parshall in their win over North Shore.
The Big Stage. The 2/3 District games tonight will be outstanding. Rugby/Bottineau, Ellendale/Edgeley, and Our Redeemer’s vs Des Lacs Burlington are all huge games that qualify as “must sees”. The best venue tonight? We could go a few ways with this but because Kenmare High has three games we look there where you can see the host school play Power Lake at 7:30, Tioga plays Divide County in the 6/7 early game, and then of course there is the chance to see Stanley and the Hansons (Kaedyn and Wyatt) take on Burke County led by Josh Kihle in the post. So if you are in the Kenmare area you get the local school as well as some of the top players in the state in the 6pm contest.
EDC. Right now the first round of the EDC games are about to tip-off with Central facing Wahpeton, Devils Lake against Fargo North, and Valley City faced GFRR. These games could really go in any direction.
Player to Watch. Garrett Bickett of Carrington. Garrett is a top 20 senior in this state and tonight his team plays LLM, a team they beat by 16 earlier in the year. Tonight it’s playoff time and the type of game that Carrington should be able to handle in a business like way. Garrett is the player that should be able to control this game and move his team to the big game on Monday against the Ellendale/Edgeley winner. Those games are in Jamestown this evening at the Civic Center.
Upset City. Mandaree defeated White Shield 68-65 as the six seed defeated the three seed although this was not your typical 3/6 match-up. Upset City? Not really. But there was not big upset last night so we just fit this in here to expand on the game more. Both teams had very similar records which led to a great game. Junior guard Ashton Grady went for 19 while junior forward Jess Chase scored 12. Freshman White Shield goal Jesse White knocked down four threes and scored a game high 20 points making a name for himself in a tough loss, but at a clutch time. Also, junior James Dickens hit four threes for his 14 points.
Hat Tip to the Career. William Brown of Williston has had a really nice year. He scored 13-14 points per game shooting 52 percent from the floor despite receiving most of the opponent’s defensive attention. For Brown to shoot as well as he did was a credit to his effort plus Brown 8-9 rebounds a contest. Brown also led his team in assists.