Goodhue Girls Playing for Repeat State Title

The Goodhue Wildcats girls basketball team is playing Saturday for a repeat Class A state championship.

The No. 2 seed and No. 2 state-ranked Wildcats wore down Cromwell-Wright 70-48 while top seed and top rated Mountain Iron-Buhl defeated last year's runner-up Maranatha Christian Academy 79-65 to set up the top two teams playing for the title.

Goodhue imposed their will on the Cardinals and scored 16 points off turnovers.

Cromwell-Wright came into the game shooting 42 percent from three-point range, but it was evident they don't shoot every day in Williams Arena. It didn't stop them from casting long-range shots and, for the most part, missing.

The Cardinals took 54 shots in the game, 31 were from beyond the arc, and they made six three-point baskets. That's 19 percent shooting.

Goodhue hit 4 of 15 from trey land.

The statistic of the game may have been the rebounding, with the Wildcats collecting 43 rebounds, 14 of them on the offensive end of the floor, and Cromwell-Wright finishing with 33, seven offensive.

The Goodhue Wildcats are like sharks in the water getting after blood when they go for turnovers.

Senior Maddy Miller had 21 points in 32 minutes for the Wildcats and they had double-doubles from juniors Sydney Lodermeier (12 points, 12 rebounds) and Emily Benrud (15 points, 11 rebounds); senior McKenzie Ryan added 10 points in 19 minutes.

Benrud, Lodermeier and Miller were our Goodhue County ADA Wildcats of the game.

On December 3, Goodhue played the Section 7 champions in Hopkins and the Rangers ran away from them 78-34.

Wildcats head coach Josh Wieme told KDHL that loss was a wake-up to his team that they had to work hard to get back to the state tournament and defend their title.

The Class A championship will be on KDHL beginning at noon from Williams Arena on the University of Minnesota campus.

Re-live the game again by listening to the broadcast below.