Totino-Grace Defeats Fridley in Girls Basketball Section Tournament

The Eagles hosted the Lady Tigers in the first round of the Section 3AAA playoffs Thursday night. In a matchup of two neighboring schools, the Eagles held off a late Fridley run to advance to the second round with a 58-44 victory.

Totino-Grace dominated the first half with tremendous team defense, contesting shots and holding Fridley to only 14 points at half time. The Eagles also worked together on offense with great ball movement, scoring 33 points to lead the Tigers by 19 at the break.

Fridley came out in the second half with much more energy and pushed the tempo, scoring points off of turnovers.

However, their aggressive team play also caused the Lady Tigers to get into early foul trouble which kept the Eagles' lead in double digits for most of the half. With 10 minutes to go Fridley cut the lead to 14—but also already had eight fouls, which hurt them later in the game. 

Fridley continued to hustle on both ends of the court and made several three-point shots to get the lead down to only 7 points with five minutes remaining.

But that was as close as the game got, as Totino-Grace was able to slow the tempo down and take critical time off of the clock. Fridley fouls put the Eagles on the free-throw line where they built back their lead to a final 14-point margin. 

With the win, Totino-Grace advances to the second round of the section playoffs and will play Park Center High School at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 8 at Spring Lake Park High School.