File photo by Travis Rosenau Sleepy Eye St. Marys’ Olivia Schieffert goes up for a shot while defended by Wabasso’s Sara Carlson (5) during a Jan. 28 Tomahawk Division girls basketball game at St. Mary’s High School.

By Ari Selvey

aselvey@nujournal.com

SLEEPY EYE – On Thursday, the Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s girls basketball team came away with a 61-34 win over Martin County West. But now on Thursday, the two teams match up again, but this time for much higher stakes – the first ever Tomahawk-Valley Conference girls basketball championship.

The championship game begins Tuesday at 7 p.m. at St. Mary’s High School.

MCW had a perfect 10-0 record in the Valley Division this season, while St. Mary’s went 15-1 in the Tomahawk Division.

“I think when we merged the two conferences, this was going to be a thing that was going to be a highlight at the end of the year for that,” St. Mary’s head coach Bruce Woitas said. “We thought it would be kind of cool to see how that goes. We get to be a part of that for the first year. And kind of a unique and crazy thing is we’re going to play Martin County West, who we just played [on Thursday] in a regular season game. They get to come back here and we get to host it this year. We’re going to see another good team in Martin County West after just playing them previously, so it will be good to see how that game goes the next time around.”

Despite the loss, MCW managed to hold St. Mary’s to its second-lowest points total of the season, with star sophomore Morgan Mathiowetz being held to a season-low 25 points. Mathiowetz came into the game averaging 34.7 points per game, most in the state, and the Knights as a team have been averaging 75.5 points per game. The Mavericks did an impressive job of keeping Mathiowetz and the rest of the Knights under wraps.

“They have a different pace of the game,” Woitas said. “They like to play a slower style of game offensively. I think a lot of times we forced them down to the last point of the shot clock to get their shot off. But that’s their nature of play, to try to slow the game down a little bit. That limits your opportunities offensively.

“And we missed some shots [Thursday] night that we would typically make, but I think just their nature of their style of play to try to slow down, you’re not maybe going to get to the point where you score your normal average. But we still played well offensively, I thought we played really well defensively, so if we can maintain and come back and do that again, we have a great shot to win that first crossover conference championship.”

Key to the Mavericks’ success this season has been Emily Anderson, as well as their defensive prowess.

“They have a very good player in that Emily Anderson,” Woitas said. “She does a lot of good things for them offensively and defensively. She’s a player that can handle the ball a lot for them, she’s listed at 5-10. They can put her inside, do a lot of things with that.

“And they have a really effective, kind of like a 3-2 zone, but it’s more like a matchup zone. So it was good to get a look at that the other night as well. Obviously there’s some things we can do to improve on what we did offensively. Obviously they’ve had a great year on the Valley side, and it’s going to be another fun game.”

While the Knights did come away with a strong victory on Thursday, it’s difficult for a team to win twice in such a short time span.

“I’m sure they’ll [make adjustments],” Woitas said. “That was their last game of the regular season, so they have a practice [Friday] and a practice Monday to prepare for that. We actually have another game Monday against Mankato Loyola, so we don’t have too much time to prep for the Martin County West game again. But I’m sure they’ll make adjustments.

“They might try to get Anderson inside more and take advantage of her size in there and see what they do with that. But if we get up and play defense the way we’ve been playing it, I think we should be OK. But they have some good, athletic girls on that team, so it should be a good matchup again.”

St. Mary’s has just two losses on the season, one to second-ranked Mayer Lutheran and one to 18-7 Lester Prairie. In the Mayer Lutheran game, Woitas said the team struggled to hit shots in the second half after leading in the first. In the Lester Prairie game, the Bulldogs had a strong shooting night, putting up 80 points, the most allowed by the Knights this season by an 11-point margin. If the Mavericks want to reverse the outcome of last game, they will have to either get hot from the floor or show up defensively in key moments.

As for the Knights, Woitas hopes to see his team execute defensively like they have been all season while making sure the team shares the ball.

“We want to emphasize what we have been all year, and that’s to play good defense,” he said. “I thought one thing we could continue to get better, we’ve got to get better ball movement in the offense. We do that, and it opens up so much more.

“There’s times where we do that really well, and there’s other times where we get a little stagnant in that and don’t move the ball well offensively, which hurts us a little bit. If we continue to do that, we’re going to be a tough team to beat down the stretch here.”