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Seniors power 20-win season; another date with Cromwell looms
by Tom Coombe
Senior-dominated teams tend to do well in the postseason, and if anything, Ely’s high school girls basketball team is senior dominated.
The Wolves’ ‘Big Three’ of Grace LaTourell, Sarah Visser and Hannah Penke - all seniors - seem to be clicking on all cylinders as they enter the postseason.
Ely closed the regular season with four straight wins and locked down the number-two seed out of the north with a 60-50 win at South Ridge in the Feb. 23 regular season finale.
The victory gave Ely a 20-6 mark for the regular season and a date with seventh- seeded Cherry in a playoff game held Thursday night, after deadline.
The heavily-favored Wolves, who swept Cherry during the regular season, would meet either Chisholm or Deer River next in a Saturday quarterfinal (12:30 p.m.) at Esko.
This Ely group is used to winning, with two straight trips to the section semifinals as well as consecutive state tournament berths in volleyball.
Head Coach Max Gantt is optimistic his Wolves can put together another deep playoff run.
“We want to win the first one at home and win that quarterfinal game, possibly against Chisholm who we’ve seen twice or Deer River who we haven’t,” said Gantt. “We’re just trying to get to the semifinals and go from there. We’re healthy which is good. We’re on a four-game win streak and scoring well and playing good defense. And our seniors are all playing well, which is what we need.”
LaTourell has been a virtual scoring machine down the home stretch, erupting for 41 points in a victory over North Woods and pouring in 127 overall during the four-game win streak.
Visser, meanwhile, has patrolled the boards, snaring 15 against South Ridge and becoming the school’s single- season rebound record holder in the process. She has 299 so far, breaking the previous record of 285 set by Brielle Kallberg, and is just six rebounds away from 1,000 for her career.
Penke is back at full strength after missing several games earlier this year and the forward provides another potent shooting threat.
Ely avenged an early-season loss to South Ridge, which is seeded second in the south half of 7A, as LaTourell went nine-for-22 from the floor and finished with 26 points, four steals and three assists.
Freshman Audrey Kallberg added 10 points, five rebounds and four steals, while Penke has six points and eight rebounds.
Junior Clare Thomas also chipped in with eight points for the night and Visser had five assists to go with her 15 rebounds as Ely overcame South Ridge’s height advantage.
• Two straight wins in the playoffs would set up a likely semifinal playoff rematch with Cromwell, on Wednesday at Duluth. The Cardinals downed the Wolves in the 7A semifinals the last two seasons.
“We’ve struggled to score against them in the past so we need to figure out how to score and take care of the ball,” said Gantt. “We played a competitive game with them at the beginning of the year so if we can do that again and keep ourselves in it, it would be nice to make the finals. That would be really cool.”
Ely has never played in a 7A final in girls basketball. This year’s title game is set for Friday, March 8 at Romano Gymnasium, on the campus of the University of Minnesota-Duluth.
Defending section and state champion Mt. Iron-Buhl is the prohibitive favorite in 7A and the top seed out of the north.
