19-20 First Look: Minnehaha Academy
The Minnehaha Academy Redhawks won a state title last year and then multiplied their talent! That’s why they are considered to be the top team in Minnesota regardless of class. Jalen Suggs Minnehaha knocked off Perham, Champlin Park, Eden Prairie,…
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Continue ReadingThe Minnehaha Academy Redhawks won a state title last year and then multiplied their talent! That’s why they are considered to be the top team in Minnesota regardless of class.
Jalen SuggsMinnehaha knocked off Perham, Champlin Park, Eden Prairie, Austin, Caledonia, Breck, St. Paul Central, Minneapolis North, DeLaSalle, Maranatha Christian, St Croix Prep, St. Peter, and Lake City last year, pretty much some of everything. The lone loss was to Hopkins twice and the Royals lost four of their starters to graduation.
The Redhawks not only bring all their key pieces back, they added three more guys that have been offered D1 scholarships!
Moving On: All the starters are back, the Redhawks just lost two guys from the bench: Siegel Howard and Bennett Theisen. Both were hard working role players. Iowa State football commit Craig McDonald also played a role on last year’s team but is not able to play this year.
Returning Starters: The Redhawks return all five starters: Jalen Suggs, Donovan Smith, Kaden Johnson, Prince Aligbe, and Chet Holmgren. That’s a top ten senior in the nation (Suggs), a top 2-3 junior in the nation (Holmgren), a top 30 sophomore (Aligbe), the state’s top football prospect (Johnson), and one of the elite shooters in the sophomore class (Smith). What makes the group even tougher is that they all played together on the Grassroots Sizzle 17u team (save Smith who played with other Redhawks on the Sizzle 16s). It’s not just talent, these kids have been playing with one another for so long that their chemistry and feel for one another is special.
Chet HolmgrenReserves Playing a Bigger Role: This might be tough. The Redhawks reserves/JV just saw three transfers come into the program that will be quite tough to beat for time. Junior Trent Finney is one that saw some bench time and the same can be said for senior Sam Gonzalez.
Potentials from the JV: The sophomore to watch is Demarion Watson, not only good hooper but an excellent track & field athlete. Watson was on JV last year with 8th grader Jerome Williams, and a few others.
New to Town: Why is Minnehaha Academy going to be so talented? In addition to the five returning starters they now have Terry Lockett back for his senior year, Isaiah Davis transferring over from Apple Valley, and Chase Carter transferring from Maranatha Christian Academy.
Lockett of course was the three year starting guard for the Redhawks and a two time state champion before spending a year at prep school. He is now back at Minnehaha and is a top football prospect in this state. Basketball wise I haven’t seen him play in about 18 months but you can expect him to step right into things. Davis is an athletic junior that averaged seven points a game while Chase Carter is a 6-foot-6 sophomore forward that already has four division one high major offers. Carter is a skilled scorer and passer out of the post that scored 4-5 buckets a game for ranked MCA last year.