The prep basketball season has had a few weeks to get going, and teams are beginning to settle down into what they are comfortable with. Contenders are beginning to emerge, and some surprises have found their way to a strong start to the season.

One standout surprise in particular has been the Minnesota Valley Lutheran Chargers girls basketball team.

With their win over Mankato Loyola on Tuesday, the MVL girls basketball team has started the 2024-25 season 5-0, the most wins to start a season that the girls program has seen since the 2012-13 season, when it rattled off eight consecutive to kick off the season. That year, the team went 23-5 with two playoff wins before falling to Lester Prairie. The five wins have already surpassed the Chargers’ season total from last year, and the sophomore-heavy team has shown a lot of growth from just nine months ago.

Something impressive about the way that MVL has won is the flexibility it has shown on both the offensive and defensive end. The Chargers have often employed a trap defense at times this season, which MVL head coach Hailey Santos said the trap defense, though up and down, is looking to be a major factor to the team’s success this year.”

“I think [Tuesday] against Loyola was one of our better ball handling matchups we have had in terms of their ability to bring the ball up the floor,” she said. “I think we recognized the weakness in going to the left hand against this team, and those are the opportunities we look for on trap. I’d still say there’s a lot of work to do on that trap defense, but I think that we’ve got the speed an athleticism to start looking for those types of opportunities on defense.”

Offensively, the Chargers have had three different players lead them in scoring so far this year, with Olivia Hammer scoring 26 in the season opener against Madelia, Avery Freier topping the scoring against Maple River with 17 and Ziva Zahrt taking the lead against Springfield and Loyola. Freier and Zahrt also scored 12 points each in the win over Waseca.

“I think it’s really helping our team’s confidence,” Santos said. “To know that if someone has an off shooting night, someone else is going to step up and it’s going to be OK. We focused on Friday against Springfield trying to bring that post element into our game, and we saw posts in double digits again.

“Our guards did such a nice job distributing that ball to them and I think the trust of knowing that just because we pass it into the post doesn’t mean I’m never going to get the ball back. It’s starting to open up our outside shots as well. The fact we’re able to spread the stats around but also still hitting double figures or getting double-doubles, as a coach it makes me really, really happy that we’re playing unselfish basketball out there.”

The Chargers are starting four sophomores this year in Hammer, Freier, Zahrt and Avery Hahn, with senior Julia DeWitt filling the remaining starting spot. The team has matched their win total from the past two seasons combined, and the Chargers are using that underdog energy to fuel their play on the court.

“I think, coming off of two seasons that, now we have already surpassed those victories, the girls recognize that we’re the underdog to a lot of people,” Santos said. “They haven’t felt sorry for themselves in that way. I think it just pushed them so much more in the offseason, and it’s pushed them in season. Of course they’re happy in that locker room right now, so are we. We’re thrilled. It’s a great start to the season. But we know that they’re still going to show up to practice tomorrow with a humble attitude.”

MVL will travel to New Ulm Cathedral on Friday to try to continue the winning streak before hosting Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop on Tuesday.

MATHIOWETZ ON BREAKNECK PACE

Morgan Mathiowetz couldn’t have asked for a better start to her season. The sophomore has averaged 36.2 points, 8.8 rebounds and 6.4 assists per game to lead Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s girls basketball to a 5-0 start, including a career-high 46 points against BOLD in the second game of the season. On that pace, Mathiowetz will finish the regular season with 941 points, which would put her career total at 2,315 after just her sophomore year, second-most in St. Mary’s history. Her 1,555 career points already sits fifth on the St. Mary’s girls career points leaderboard. Mathiowetz’s older sister and St. Mary’s all-time leading scorer, Madison, averaged 34.9 points per game her senior year, just below Mathiowetz’s current season pace. It’s a small sample size so far, but if Mathiowetz continues scoring at her current rate, there could be multiple broken records in her future.

The Knights’ schedule gets tougher later in the season, taking on a tough conference opponent Lester Prairie on Jan. 6 and Feb. 7, along with last year’s Section 2A state representative Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart on Jan. 9 and Feb. 10, so Mathiowetz will have to see if her scoring keeps up against some of the top squads in the area. So far, however, no team has been able to hold her to under 27 points, and the formula has been working for the Knights as they have won every game by at least 22 points. Along with recent 1,000-career point scorer and junior Natalie Fischer (14 ppg), freshman Olivia Schieffert (13.3 ppg), junior Brynne Ibberson (8 ppg) and lone senior Amelia Schwartz (6.8 rpg), the seventh-ranked Knights look to be one of the tougher teams in Class A.

St. Mary’s travels to Springfield on Friday, then heads to Wabasso on Tuesday in two more conference matchups, hoping to solidify a lead in the Tomahawk Division.