Girls basketball: BOLD (3AA), NLS (6AA) playing in section title games today
BOLD High School and New London-Spicer take a shot at reaching the Class AA Girls State Basketball Tournament tonight with 8 p.m. games in Marshall at Southwest Minnesota State University and St. Cloud at SCSU’s Halenbeck Hall, respectively.
While this is a familiar role for the NLS Wildcats, who have reached 13 state tournaments and played in 7 championship games, BOLD is looking to earn its initial state pass.
BOLD shoots for first state trip
The BOLD Warriors (25-3) face the Worthington Trojans (21-5) in the 3AA final.
The Warriors have won 18 straight, most impressively a 61-54 win at Olivia over Sauk Centre in the West Central Conference playoff.
In three playoff wins, junior guard Baylie Kubesh is averaging 16.6 points per game, junior guard Carly Sigurdson — a 1,000-point scorer — is averaging 27 points and has knocked down 13 three-pointers, and senior forward Maggie Nagel is scoring at 10 ppg clip with a team-high 7.6 rebounds. Sigurdson scored 39 points in the playoff opener vs. Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial.
Two of Worthington’s five losses have been to Marshall, a top-five team in AAA.
Both teams are offensive minded averaging about 65 ppg.
BOLD, which formed in the early 1990s, is composed of Olivia and the former Bird Island-Lake Lillian district, neither of which ever got to state either.
Wildcats renew rivalry with Mainstreeters
The New London-Spicer Wildcats (24-4) renew acquaintance with former West Central North adversary Sauk Centre (26-2) tonight with a trip to the state tournament at stake.
The Mainstreeters won both meetings last year before a reorganization found NLS joining the Wright County Conference.
The ’Streeters swept Section 6AA last year and made it all the way to the state championship game at Target Center where they fell to Providence Academy 46-40.
Sauk’s losses have been to Osakis and BOLD in the WCC championship game. Three of the Wildcats’ four setbacks came to Wright County AAA teams. The ’Cats avenged a Jan. 8 loss at Annandale by beating the Cardinals at New London 65-43 on Feb. 7.
NLS has steadily improved and is 13-1 since losing at Dassel-Cokato 53-52 on Jan. 2. Its last state visit was in 2009.
In the playoffs, the Wildcats’ 1,000-point scorer Taylor Thunstedt, a junior guard, is averaging 26.3 ppg with 11 three-pointers while directing the offense (24 assists). Junior center Olivia Setterberg has averaged 12.6 points in the three wins.
