Majettes look for fast start at state
By T.J. ALLICK Staff Writer tallick@minotdailynews.comArticle Photos
A quick start is the Minot High School Majettes' spark for the fire.
When the Majettes get off to a quick start, they hit their stride and the peak of their game.
Minot wants that type of start entering this weekend's Class A State Girls Basketball Tournament. The Majettes play against East Region No. 2 seed Fargo North in the opening round today at 4 p.m. at the Bismarck Civic Center.
"If we can come out and get a good start, we'll be on top of our game," Majettes head coach Todd Magnuson said. "We just have to go out and play our type of game. If we can get Holly (Johnson) and Mickayla (Nagel) going from the outside, and have Katelyn Larson driving to the basket, we'll get the type of start we want."
Along with a quick start, Magnuson feels a strong zone defense is going to be key in the opening round against the Spartans, who topped the Majettes 65-56 at the start of the season.
"Their overall size is pretty good so they are tough down low," he said. "We really need to defend and keep them off the boards otherwise things can get out of hand."
Magnuson also feels the Majettes need to do a solid job defending North point guard Alyssa Dehne.
"The last time we played them we pressed right away and the Dehne girl really picked apart our press by herself," Magnuson said. "This time we are coming with the zone defense. We want to force them to beat us from the outside and we want to keep them off the boards. If we can do those things, we'll be fine."
Magnuson said the Majettes have already achieved their No. 1 goal of making state. Now he wants his team to take it a step further.
"The kids did achieve their main goal of making state. Now that we are here we want to go out and do something," he said. "I want them to be playing into the second round and then into Saturday. At the very least I want these kids to be able to experience playing on T.V. Friday. It's a lot a fun and they deserve it. They've worked really hard for this and they will deserve any success."
Minot's one loss at the regional tournament came at the hands of the Williston Coyotes, who were the Cinderella team of the tournament.
"I tell you what, Williston was on fire at the regional tournament," Magnuson said. "They had about as hot of a regional tournament as you can have."
Williston's surprise
Williston entered last weekend's region tournament as the No. 7 seed, but went on to knock off both No. 2 Turtle Mountain-Belcourt and No. 3 Minot High in consecutive rounds.
The Coyotes will look to carry the momentum into their opening round game against Grand Forks Red River today.
"We had a great regional tournament," Williston head coach Daryl LaDue said. "We played a couple great games against some really tough teams in Turtle Mountain and Minot. The girls went in with the right attitude. They knew they had nothing to lose and they played that way. Now we want to play our best basketball and give it our best shot."
LaDue, who is in just his second year as head of the Coyotes feels ball control is going to play a key factor at state.
"We really want to take care of the ball because that was something we had struggled with," he said. "We've gotten slowly better as the season went on. We just need to play together and build off of one another. That's the key to our success."
