Review: Eastern A Divisional - Girls

Well that went *Almost* as expected. Miles City and Glendive, the clear-cut best two teams in the Eastern A, advanced to State (although the Lady Devils pulled off what I consider a mild upset over the Cowgirls in the title game).

Kalli Stanhope (Glendive guard) is the best player in this Division, no questions asked. She has a killer instinct that not many players can match, and then you put her deadly shooting into that equation...and you have a dangerous player who makes any upset possible. The Lady Devils just seem to have figured out how to beat Miles City, handing the otherwise dominant Cowgirls their only two losses of the year, both in slow-down, drag-out games in which the final scores were about 45-37.

Glendive is not the most athletic team, they are not the tallest teams, but they might be the smartest team in the field. They know how to win, and that can be just as, if not more important in big tournaments than any of that natural ability.

In the 3rd place game, Sidney beat Central by 3 points, 51-48, although Central might have had the most exciting 15 seconds of the year in the final seconds of that game to make it much closer than it should have been...

Lady Rams guard Austin Hanser came up with a steal at about half-court and fed it ahead to Kylie Medicine Horse for the easy lay-up. Then, in a play reminiscent of Larry Bird, Hanser stole the inbounds on the baseline while going out-of-bounds and immediately through it to Medicine Horse underneath to make it a 1-point game with 3 seconds to play. The Rams would end up losing the game, but the play was incredible.

And since Miles City already beat Sidney in the semis, no challenge game was needed to determine this year's Eastern A Girls State participants.

Congrats to Glendive and Miles City. Good luck!