Northfield Boys Basketball Advances to Section Semifinals

The Northfield Raiders boys basketball team defeated Kasson-Mantorville 74-63 in Northfield on Wednesday night to advance to the Section 1 Class 3A semifinals.

Northfield jumped out to an early lead when 6-foot-4 senior Hunter Koep scored their first 13 points and finished the game with 15.

The Raiders were led by 6-foot-3 junior Alex Rasmussen with 20 points. Two others had double digits: 6-foot-3 sophomore Mitchell Stanchina provided good energy and had 15 points off the bench and 6-foot-6 sophomore Mason Zick added 14 points.

Northfield had a 34-24 lead at the half and a few minutes into the second half Kasson-Mantorville trimmed it to four points.

Komets 6-foot senior Brendan Knoll scored the 1,000th point of his career on his first shot of the game, a three-point basket with 4:39 to go in the first half. Those were the only points he would have in the first half. Knoll finished the game with 17 points.

Kasson-Mantorville was led by 5-foot-11 senior Riley Schwenke with 22 points, including five three-point baskets, and a couple of them were shot from Dundas.

Two stats important in this game were the turnovers and free throws. Kasson-Mantorville had 14 turnovers and Northfield scored 25 points off them.

The Raiders also attacked the basket and got to the line 20 times, but only cashed in on 12 of them while the Komets were 4 of 8 from the free throw line.

The brackets on the back of the program handed out at Northfield High School were wrong. They put the Section 1 Class 4A brackets there and had the Class 3A teams listed.

In other Section 1 Class 3A games, Austin rolled by Albert Lea 88-39, Byron defeated Red Wing 68-42 and No. 3 seed Winona got a scare from Stewartville but pulled out a 62-60 win.

The Raiders play Winona at 2:45 Saturday afternoon in the Rochester Mayo Civic Center Arena. The other semifinal game between Austin and Byron is at 1PM.

In Section 1 Class 4A, Lakeville North and Lakeville South jump on buses and head to Rochester to play in the 6:30PM semifinal after North cruised by Rochester Century 87-44 and South defeated Owatonna 87-57.

The 8:15PM semifinal in the Rochester Mayo Civic Center Arena will have Rochester John Marshall going up against New Prague. The Rockets defeated Farmington 61-50 and the Trojans bested Rochester Mayo 70-56.