The boys basketball state tournament will have a Doublemint gum flavor.
The Wrigley's company slogan about doubling your pleasure will come into play for six schools — Albany, Alexandria, DeLaSalle, Lakeville North, Minnehaha Academy and Stewartville. Their boys teams are doing this week what their girls teams did last week: playing in the state tournament.
"The community is going nuts right now," Stewartville coach Parker Lyga said. "The atmosphere is electric, and the excitement and support is unreal."
Lakeville North (26-3) resides in Class 4A, Alexandria (24-4), DeLaSalle (24-5) and Stewartville (25-4) in Class 3A and Albany (29-1) and Minnehaha Academy (21-8) in Class 2A. Class 1A is the lone group that didn't produce a section sweep. All six schools will be in action Tuesday when the tournament begins at two sites, Target Center and Williams Arena.
"Having the girls and boys programs have such great seasons at the same time is pretty cool for our community," Albany coach Cory Schlagel said. "They are pretty spoiled right now in getting to watch a lot of high-level high school basketball being played."
For Stewartville, it's the first state tournament appearance for both programs. The girls finished as the runner-up to Benilde-St. Margaret's as Lyga watched from the Williams Arena stands. His boys team drew perennial power DeLaSalle in the quarterfinals.
"As you noticed at the girls state tournament, our community travels well," Lyga said. "Our fans and student sections have been some of the best in the state, and they all just want to see our community succeed.
"We are a town of 7,000 people, that includes just under 600 students nine through 12. We are a very small fish in a big pond when it comes to Class 3A. The amount of pride and drive to succeed is something that sets this community up for success."
Northwest Suburban powers are back
The Class 4A and Class 3A state champions, Park Center (26-2) and Totino-Grace (21-8), return to defend their championships. Both are members of the Northwest Suburban Conference.
Don't sleep on the third member of that conference that made state, Andover (22-7) in Class 4A. The Huskies will face Park Center in the quarterfinals for the second consecutive year.
The Huskies went on to win the consolation championship a year ago after falling to Park Center 74-60 in the opening round. That game was tied seven minutes into the second half.
Park Center defeated Andover 97-91 in their only regular-season meeting.
Small classes will get new champs
The defending champions in the two smaller classes, Annandale in Class 2A and Hayfield in Class 1A, didn't make it back.
The list of contenders to fill the void in Class 2A starts with top seed Holy Family, which has lost only to Park Center and Class 3A state tournament qualifier Alexandria. Second seed Albany's only loss was to Holy Family, 76-68 on Dec. 30. Third seed Maple River (29-2) has won 17 in a row. Fourth seed Plainview-Elgin-Millville (26-4) is 23-1 since New Year's Day. Fifth seed Minnehaha Academy has lost only to teams from bigger classes or to state tournament teams.
In Class 1A, top seed Russell-Tyler-Ruthton (28-1) is a basket away from a perfect season. Its loss was to Dawson-Boyd, 72-70 three weeks ago. Third seed Spring Grove (29-1) also lost only to Dawson-Boyd, in December, and has won 27 games since. Russell-Tyler-Ruthton took care of the Dawson-Boyd problem for both in the Section 3 final, 63-55.
Second seed New Life Academy (24-5) is on a 10-game winning streak. Fourth seed Cherry (26-4), featuring junior guard Isaac Asuma, who recently committed to the Gophers, has scored more than 100 points six times, twice in the past two weeks.
