WOODBURY — After defeating Stillwater twice during the regular season, East Ridge delivered an even more emphatic victory while stopping the Ponies 79-57 in the semifinals of the Section 4AAAA tournament on Saturday, March 2 at East Ridge High School.
The second-seeded Raptors finished the first half with a 10-0 run to open up a 16-point halftime lead and did not look back.
East Ridge (20-8) advanced to face top-seeded White Bear Lake (20-7), a 60-41 semifinal winner over Woodbury, in the finals on Thursday, March 7. Stillwater, which was the No. 3 seed, finishes its season with a 20-8 record.
East Ridge senior guard Kendall Barnes, who scored 21 points for Roseville in a 56-45 win over the Ponies in early January before a mid-season transfer, poured in a game-high 27 points for the Raptors. She was the biggest difference maker for East Ridge, which defeated the Ponies by three and seven points during the regular season.
Sidney Klauer added 16 points and Isabella Sanneh chipped in with 15 for the Raptors.
“It gives them one of the best defenders in the state to be able to use against us, which makes our life harder,” Ponies coach Tim Peper said Barnes joining an already strong team. “I think she is one of the best defenders in the whole state and it just gives them one more threat on offense.
“Klauer did a really good job, but she’s not a pure point guard. (Barnes) gives them a pure point guard they didn’t have for most of the season. She’s just a really, really good player.”
Senior Amy Thompson led the Ponies with 18 points, but nothing came easy against Barnes and the other defenders who rotated defensively on Stillwater’s top offensive threat.
“Amy never really got a break,” Peper said. “She was constantly having to work and it was that much harder when Kendall was on her.”
East Ridge led throughout the first half, but the Ponies trailed by just six after a 3-pointer from Annika Peper with about 2:30 remaining before the intermission. But the Raptors responded with a 10-0 run to carry a 45-29 lead into the break.
“They went on a run after we cut it down to six,” Peper said. “I thought if we could keep this to six or eight points at halftime we’d be fine, but they kind of punched us right away.”
Annika Peper finished with 16 points and Liana Buckhalton added 13, but the Raptors never let Stillwater back into the game.
“It was an uphill battle and we couldn’t get that run put together,” Peper said. “They consistently were able to make plays to prevent us from getting on any run.
“In the second half we would make a play, but we just had a tough time guarding them and couldn’t get stops to get a run going.”
Stillwater racked up 19 offensive rebounds and shot attempted 29 free throws compared to 19 for Raptors.
“If you told me we’d out-rebound them on the offensive end and shoot 10 more free throws I would have liked our chances going in,” Peper said. “We gave it our best shot, unfortunately that just wasn’t enough.”
It was a challenging season in a lot of ways, with players in and out of the lineup for a variety of reasons. The coach was pleased with the team’s perseverance throughout.
“We had to keep changing who we were when we had injuries and then the kids come back,” Peper said. “Instead of just saying this is what we are, we had to constantly tweak and mold who we are and we finally started to get some continuity. They worked really hard and were really good kids and supportive of each other. I was super proud of them for that and their work ethic.
“They wanted to really instill a culture into the program and I think they did a great job. It was a tough season with illness and injuries, but I’m proud of them because they stayed the course and just kept working. At the end of the year, I thought we were playing our best basketball. They were ready but East Ridge was just that dang good, at least on that night.”
It was the final prep game for Thompson, who finished No. 3 on the program’s all-time scoring list with 1,785 career points.
The University of South Florida recruit, who was the only senior on the section roster, averaged nearly 26 points per game this season and scored 1,880 career points overall when adding the 95 she scored as an eighth-grader at Mahtomedi.
Only Sara Scalia (2,610) and Alexis Pratt (1,989) have scored more points for Stillwater.
“It’s just really amazing what she was able to do this year, but I shouldn’t be because of all the hard work she put into growing as a player,” Peper said of Thompson. “She was able to do things this year that I didn’t think she would be able to do. Having those 40-plus point games and hitting the shots that she did, it blow my mind how she was able to do some of those things. I couldn’t be more impressed with all that she accomplished.
“I constantly see her in the PAC and I know how hard she works. For her to shoot over 40 percent on threes with the shots she was forced to take, it’s just mind-blowing that she was able to shoot that high of a percentage. She is that good of a shooter.”
Stillwater 29 28 — 57
East Ridge 45 34 — 79
Stillwater (pts): Liana Buckhalton 13, Franny deLeon 4, Annika Peper 16, Amy Thompson 18, Addison Bergstad 2, Chloe Rymal 2 and Lucci deLeon 2.
East Ridge: Taylor Klauer 3, Sidney Klauer 16, Jada Otto 5, Lannie Holmes 7, Vienna Murray 6, Kendall Barnes 27 and Isabella Sanneh 15.
Contact Stuart Groskreutz at stuart.groskreutz@apgecm.com
Stillwater girls basketball all-time scoring leaders
Player Points
Sara Scalia 2,610
Alexis Pratt 1,989
Amy Thompson 1,785
Amber Scalia 1,442
Alena Martens 1,258
Lexi Karlen 1,184
Melissa Braaten 897
Carolyn Frisk 890
Teri Hill 886
Liza Karlen 882
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