Minneota opens season with win at home

After a 10-month wait since last playing a varsity game at the state tournament in March, Minneota started where it left off with a dominating performance in a 70-48 victory over MACCRAY on Saturday night.
MACCRAY employed a box-and-one defense on Minneota's Abby Hennen to start the game.
"That got us to start slow," said Minneota coach Chad Johnston. "We had prepared all week for the match-up zone they ran against us last year in the first round of sub-section play. We did a nice job of getting points in transition, but we were not really effective against the box-and-one. Once we settled in on how we wanted to attack that, things went really well."
MACCRAY led 14-12 at one point before Minneota went on a 26-5 run to close out the first half with a 38-19 lead.
Sophomore Ireland Stassen poured in a career-high 25 points, hitting 11 of 15 shots from the field, including a pair of three-pointers to lead the Vikings. She scored 14 of those points on layups off transition. Stassen also chipped in with seven rebounds and two steals.
"Ireland got the hot hand and had a great game for us," said Johnston. "That is what we need from other players when a team really tries to take away other players like MACCRAY did."
Eventually, as Minneota started scoring in the transition game and MACCRAY went away from the box-and-one and went to a zone defense.
"That was what we had prepared for and we looked a lot better in the half-court," Johnston noted. "We got transition points the whole game and did a really nice job of pushing the ball. Abby Rost and Natalee Rolbiecki were other players that looked very good in transition also."
Hennen finished with a double-double of 13 points and 10 rebounds to go along with five assists and four steals. Rolbiecki had 13 points, five rebounds and two steals. Abby Rost added 10 points and two steals, and Jeren Rost had five points and three steals.
The Vikings shot a solid 48 percent from the field.
Minneota 70, MACCRAY 38
Halftime: Minneota 38, MACCRAY 19.
MACCRAY (total points) - Bourne 19, Kimpling 2, Koenen 2, Randt 2, Summer 7, Thein 6. Totals 15-42 3-7 38.
MINNEOTA (FG, FT, Pts) - Kenadi Arndt 1-1 0-0 2, Abby Hennen 3-13 4-4 13, Grace Hennen 0-0 0-0 0, Kennedi Jurrens 0-0 0-0 0, Megan Krog 0-0 0-0 0, Natalee Rolbiecki 6-14 1-1 13, Abby Rost 5-9 0-0 10, Jeren Rost 2-5 1-1 5, Ireland Stassen 11-15 1-3 25, McKenzie Tolk 0-2 0-0 0, McKenna Yost 1-2 0-0 2. Totals 29-61 7-9 70.
3-pointers: MACCRAY (Bourne 4, Summer 1). Minneota (A.Hennen 3, Stassen 2).
Rebounds: MACCRAY 18 (Randt 6). Minneota 33 (A.Hennen 10, Stassen 7, Rolbiecki 5, Tolk 5, A.Rost 3, G.Hennen 1, Jurrens 1, J.Rost 1).
Assists: MACCRAY - not available. Minneota 14 (A.Hennen 5, Tolk 4, A.Rost 2, Rolbiecki 1, Stassen 1, Yost 1).
Steals: MACCRAY - 7 (Bourne 3). Minneota 17 (A.Hennen 4, J.Rost 3, Rolbiecki 2, A.Rost 2, Stassen 2, Yost 2, Krog 1, Tolk 1).
Turnovers: MACCRAY 23, Minneota 12.

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