Albany, Providence Academy battle in a girls basketball game worthy of March

ALBANY, MINN. — Conner Goetz coaches the Providence Academy girls basketball team. The athletic teams at the Catholic school in Plymouth are the Lions, and it's a lion-hearted schedule that Goetz has been putting together for his talented roster.

This caused a visitor to a Providence practice this week to say to Goetz: "I was a looking at your schedule. You don't use the Gophers' Ben Johnson as a role model for nonconference games."

Goetz only smiled and said: "We have good, young players, and excellent competition makes them better."

The Lions had a pair of three-point victories over Dowling Catholic, the school where Caitlin Clark first became an Iowa legend, and Lakeville North, a Class 4A tournament team last March, on the way to taking an 8-0 record and a 37-game winning streak into Tuesday night's game at a packed Albany High School gym.

And why Albany? Excellent competition — and familiarity:

* Albany defeated Providence 57-43 to win the Class 2A title in 2021 behind point guard Paige Meyer (now a standout at South Dakota State).

* Providence defeated Albany 55-48 in a state semifinal in 2022, before beating Fergus Falls 55-53 in overtime to win the state title.

"She's 6-foot-3, athletic; we couldn't keep her off the boards," Goetz said.

In other words, Providence was here on Tuesday night to face a mighty challenge, rather than trying to find the girls high school version of IUPUI for a home game.

The Lions were practicing 3-on-3 Monday against what would be the offense's left side of Albany's zone. The players were the top of Goetz's rotation and the youth remains remarkable:

Senior Brooke Hohenecker, juniors Hope Counts and McKenna Schaefer, sophomore Maddyn Greenway, freshman Emma Millerbernd, eighth-grader Ari Peterson and seventh-grader Beckett Greenway.

Two older Counts sisters, Maria and Grace, were Lions and are now playing for Minnesota Duluth. Grace was home on break and came to Monday's practice.

"Maddyn? Maddyn is too good," she said. "It's insane. She's untouchable. We were grades ahead of her, and what we wanted to do was to play with Maddyn."

Maddyn and company won their final 29 games last season. There were eight more wins added to that streak this season, and with six minutes left in the first half, it looked as though the wins would continue.

Providence's game is to play with tremendous speed. Albany likes to play fast, too, but when this one was over, coach Aaron Boyum said, "There's a difference between playing fast and playing frantic. We had to talk about that in the first half."

Albany calmed down and pushed back to within 38-36 at halftime, and then for much of the second half, the frantic changed uniforms. And with two seconds left and the score tied 70-all, senior guard Savanna Pelzer was sent to the line for the hometown Huskies.

"When they blew the whistle, I knew I had been fouled," Pelzer said. "When I got to the line, I was shaking."

Albany 72, Providence 70, and a fanatical, roaring crowd celebrated this by mingling with the victors on the floor.

Greenway was stuck on eight points for a long time in the first half and finished with 19, 15 below this season's average. Wasn't so bad that Greenway and teammates couldn't get the threes to fall, but they missed a bucketload of layups.

Kylan Gerads and Sand, Albany's inside players, finished their opportunities. Gerads scored 25 points, and Sand added 23.

A frantically fun night for the home fans in the Albany gym … and a rematch in March would surprise no one.