Campus News
Minnesota West Hosts NJCAA Region XIII A Tournament
2/28/18
Minnesota West will host the NJCAA Region XIII A Tournament on March 3 and 4, 2018.
March 3, 2018
2:00 pm - Lady Jays face Ridgewater
4:00 pm - Rochester v. Anoka Ramsey
March 4, 2018
2:00 pm - Championship Game
The Minnesota West women's and men's basketball teams will be competing in regional tournament action later this week. For the women's team, however, it will be as the MCAC Southern Division champion.
The Lady Jays turned back the Rochester Yellowjackets 72-68 on their home floor Sunday afternoon in a battle of teams with identical 21-5 overall and 12-1 division records. When it was all over, however, West claimed the outright division championship.
Better yet, the Jays will host the Region XIII Tournament beginning Saturday, March 3, at the Center for Health and Wellness on its own Worthington campus. Sunday's win made it happen.
"We haven't hosted the regional since 1992. And since I've been here (15 years), nobody has hosted the regional except Anoka-Ramsey and Rochester," gushed head coach Rosalie Hayenga-Hostikka.
Minnesota West's women will play Ridgewater in a 2 p.m. first-round game on Saturday. In the other first-round matchup, Rochester will play Anoka-Ramsey.
The Minnesota West men's team, which lost to Rochester 89-71 on Saturday, will open tournament play as a fourth seed. The schedule wasn't solidified as of Sunday, but the Bluejays will travel to Coon Rapids for the tournament and open, according to head coach Aaron Poor Bear, against Rainy River.
Sunday's doubleheader with Rochester was postponed a day due to wintry weather.
Lady Jays 72, Rochester 68
Leading Rochester 54-50 after three periods after trailing 36-29 at halftime, the Lady Jays weren't able to put a safe distance between them and the Yellowjackets until late in the fourth quarter. But with 3:12 to play, sophomore sharp-shooter Ashlynn Wabeke drained a 3-point shot beyond the top of the key to give the Jays a 62-57 advantage.
Rochester answered with a 3-point make of its own, but at 2:42 Wabeke connected on another 3-pointer at the top of the key for a 65-60 lead. A nifty turnaround bank shot by teammate Andrea Hinkeldey kept a little distance between the two teams, at 67-63. A Rochester miss, and a Katherin Ihnen rebound with less than a minute to go gave the Lady Jays more breathing room. With 44.8 seconds left, the Jays' Emily Haubrich made two free throws and it was 69-63. Still fighting, the Jackets cut the margin to three points in the final seconds, but when Haubrich hit a free throw with 6.2 seconds remaining, it was a four-point lead -- and finally, a four-point win.
Wabeke hadn't been hitting her long-range bombs for most of the game. She was only 1-for-5 in the first half. She wasn't connecting on them during the warm-up after intermission, either.
"Which is always a good thing for me," she said. "Whenever I don't shoot good in warmups, I know I'm going to shoot good for the game. As soon as they give me a little opening, I have confidence I can hit the shot. I just need a little bit."
Wabeke finished the game with 13 points. Hinkeldey had 21. Haubrich scored 14 and Katherin Ihnen had 13, with 14 rebounds. Hinkeldey had 12 rebounds of her own.
Rochester gave Minnesota West plenty of trouble Sunday on defense. Whenever any Lady Jay got the basketball inside, the Yellowjackets swarmed to her, making it difficult to maneuver.
"We knew they were going to collapse. That's what they did to us when we played 'em in Rochester," said Hinkeldey. "But that left our guards more open. We had some good ball movement. That was definitely our main focus today -- ball movement, getting it inside and out."
Nautika Kotero led Rochester with 20 points, but she fouled out of the game with 5:55 remaining in the fourth quarter.
After the final buzzer sounded, the Lady Jays embraced in the middle of the court. And a sizable Minnesota West crowd applauded appreciatively.
"This is way up there. What a fun game to play," said Hayenga-Hostikka, who said her team was a little out of control early. "I thought we just slowed down in the second half, and we did a better job of doing what we wanted to offensively."
There was no need, she said, to remind her players of what they were playing for.
"I said, 'Should I give a great speech?' That's something you don't need to do for this game. If anything, we were a little more pumped up than we needed to be," she said.
Indeed. Wabeke was still pumped up after it was all over.
"I have no words how it feels. It's just amazing," she said.
Article courtesy of Daily Globe (February 26, 2018)