By Jake Schroer
Crow River News Sports
The Knights bounced back from a loss to Park Center with a dominating win over Hopkins and a section win over Moorhead.
STMA came out fired up and raced to a 21-2 lead on the way to a 76-48 win over the #1 ranked Hopkins Royals on Tuesday night.
Rae Johnson (30 points) and Sydney Tracy (24) carried most of the offense for the Knights and the defense gave Hopkins fits, holding them to just 26 first-half points. STMA led by 17 at the half.
Johnson hit several key shots down the stretch and Tracy kept up with scoring and defense (seven rebounds) in the second half as the Knights took home a strong win.
Kitri Zezza scored nine points and Lizzy Heil added seven to the total. Both also served as instrumental cogs in the defensive effort.
Head coach Kent Hamre said his message was simple; take care of the small things and the big things will take care of themselves.
“Can we control our effort? Can we control our attitude? Can we control our hustle? Yes,” Hamre said. “We can’t control the final score, but if we’re doing those things, it does take care of it.”
Tracy said that the Knights came in wanting this game badly.
“It was a great team win for us and I think we all played our role and did everything right,” Tracy said.
“We came in with a lot of intensity and effort. We had a lot of heart out there,” Johnson said.
Zezza said that the win was big, but things can still get better.
“We still have a lot of things to improve on,” Zezza said, adding that the team needs to learn from the experience and keep improving.
MOORHEAD
Following the huge Hopkins win, the Knights traveled to Moorhead to take on the Spuds and came away with an 84-55 win.
Sydney Tracy had another big game with 25 points and six rebounds as the Knights powered past the Spuds. STMA led 49-29 at halftime.
The Knights shot 50 percent from behind the arc. Rae Johnson knocked down five three point shots and Kitri Zezza hit three.
Vanessa Alexander and Whitney Dold each contributed seven points. Lizzy Heil grabbed five rebounds for the Knights. Alexys Sovis scored her first varsity points.
STMA improved to 4-1 on the season. The Knights played Minnetonka (3-2) Tuesday. They face another test traveling to Eagan (2-1) on Thursday.