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Sports

Southwest Lakers Season Ended at Wayzata

Minneapolis Southwest drops an 84-51 decision to 10th-ranked Wayzata in a Section 6AAA first round boys basketball decision Tuesday.

The 10th-ranked and second-seeded Wayzata Trojans had a little too much of everything—height, shooting ability, rebounding and ball handing—for the Minneapolis Southwest Lakers Tuesday.

Wayzata jumped out to a fast start and rolled to an 84-51 win over the visiting Lakers in a Section 6AAAA boys basketball first-round matchup.

The Lakers ended their season at 8-19.

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The Trojans led 41-26 at the half. Southwest made a bit of a run at Wayzata in the second half, but couldn’t quite get the margin down to within striking range.

The Lakers weren’t able to bang with the bigger Trojans inside. And while they had the speed to match the Trojans, Southwest made too many turnovers to hang with the host team.

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“I just wish we would have boxed out better,” said Minneapolis Southwest senior forward Matt St. Anthony. “We turned the ball over too many times. You can’t win with that many turnovers and giving up that many offensive rebounds.

“It was a sloppy game for us,” added St. Anthony, who scored 10 points for the Lakers. “We’ve struggled with that all year. And their size had a lot to do with it, too.”

Julius Williams led the Lakers with 16 points.

Senior guard Eric Robertson led Wayzata with 25.

“There were a lot of turnovers,” said Lakers forward Rodney Pierce-Tyler. “We needed to take care of the ball and have more intensity.”

The Lakers made great strides this season, agreed head coach Tom Weko and his players. Coming off a 2-18 season, Southwest won four times as many games this year.

“We increased our wins from last season,’ said Pierce-Tyler. “A big jump. It felt good.”

“It’s tough as a senior,” said St. Anthony. “But knowing I’m going to play basketball somewhere else next year keeps me up.”

The teams were even at the free-throw line, with Southwest going 10-of-11 to 10-of-15 for Wayzata. But the Trojans made 31 field goals to just 19 for the Lakers, including seven 3-point field goals.

Wayzata (20-7) will play Robbinsdale Armstrong (18-9) Friday at Osseo High School in a Section 6AAAA semifinal game starting at 8 p.m.

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