A Game to Remember
March 16, 2013
The 2013 Minnesota High School Girls’ Basketball Tournament not only displayed how far skills levels have advanced but also produced the Game of the Century in the Class AA level.
The final game of the AA division on March 16 pitted Braham, familiar tourney powerhouse, and a team representing the southern Minnesota city of New Richland, plus the neighboring communities of Hartland, Ellendale, and Geneva (HEG). New Richland-HEG was making its third appearance, the most recent being last year.
Braham was led by yet another member of the celebrated Dahlman family. This time it was senior guard Rebekah Dahlman who carried the family torch. Bound for Vanderbilt University, she currently is the state’s all-time leading scorer in girls’ high school basketball. In the opening game of the tourney, she scored her 5,000th point.
The unquestioned leader of the New Richland-HEG Panthers is the personable scoring machine Carlie Wagner, who the night before poured in 48 points in the win over favored Minneapolis Washburn. In the opener, this University of Minnesota recruit scored 31 points as her team waltzed by Pelican Rapids, 62-49.
In the championship game, Dahlman uncharacteristically picked up three early fouls and sat down for the remainder of the half with only two points. On the other hand, Wagner was shooting at will, scoring from the field on eight of 20 shots. The Panthers led by 27 to 15.
The second half was one spectators will forever remember. Dahlman returned, determined to erase New Richland-HEG’s lead. She nearly succeeded, but was met head on by Carlie Wagner and her twin sisters Maddie and Marnie, both eighth graders. If your team was the Panthers and your name wasn’t Wagner, you didn’t score in the second half.
Both the twins were stellar, but Carlie was magnificent in willing her team to a one-point win. For the game, she put up 43 shots and scored on 21 of them. Her team had a supposedly comfortable 58-51 lead after she scored on jump shot with two minutes and 15 seconds remaining, but free throws by Dahlman, a jumper by Dani Braund, and a layup basket by Dahlman cut the lead to 58-57. A Carlie Wagner free throw made it 59-57, and, with 37 seconds left Dahlman committed a foolish reach-in foul. It was her fifth. She left the game having scored 30 points in the second quarter.
Dahlman’s 30 second-half points were topped by Wagner’s 31. She finished with 50 points, a state girls’ record. Of the Panthers’ 60 points she had 50, and Maddie and Marlie four each, a feat no sisters will most likely ever match.
When it was over, high school league statisticians released the information that Carlie, in addition to setting the one-game scoring record of 50, had set records for:
***Most tournament points (129)
***Most tournament field goal attempts (110)
***Most tournament field goals made (48)
***Most field goal attempts in a game (43)
According to coach John Schultz of New Richland-HEG, the other Panther players don’t mind if the Wagners score all the points: “Some of them don’t score that much, but they don’t care. They know their roles are defense and rebounding.” Reporter Howard Luloff discovered that Schultz has coached Carlie since she was a third grader. “He’s my second dad,” she told Luloff.
The New Richland-HEG vs. Braham was by far the best game of the tournament and likely of tourneys to come. Other champions crowned on March 16 were Hopkins (AAAA), DeLaSalle (AAA), and Minneota (A).
The quality of Minnesota girls’ basketball has improved drastically in only a few years; however there are some unintended consequences. As some schools are producing superior teams, others are not. One need only to look to the first round of the Section 4A Tournament and see that Maranatha Academy blitzed Learning Center for leasership by 126 to 5. During the course of the season other scores surfaced in the AA and A classification:
***Mountain Iron-Buhl 85, Bigfork 7
***In the 2AA Tournament, New Richland HEG 79, Maple River 9
***Braham 77, Pine City 9
If the high school league is all about its members feeling good about themselves, then it should’t all outcomes such as those listed above. Apparently there is no mercy rule in girls’ high school basketball, but there should be. No girl wants to remember that she played in a tournament on a team that lost 126-5. Mismatches should be treated as forfeits after the first half, with the game score withheld.