IWA, St. Joe Clash In Quarterfinal Game At UM-St. Louis today

Today at 6 p.m. the top two girls teams in the state of Missouri will clash at the Mark Twain Center on the campus of UM-St. Louis for the right to go to next week’s semifinals of the Show Me Showdown, the state basketball championships.

Watch this game live, streamed on Fox Sports Midwest.

These are clearly the two most talented teams in all of Class 5 girls basketball. Incarnate Word Academy 24-6 will battle with St. Joseph’s Academy, 25-5 for the right to continue the season.

St. Joe coach Julie Matheny believes a third time is a charm. Her Angels have fallen twice to IWA this year. They lost the title of the Visitation Christmas tournament 46-41 and fell again on the Red Knight’s floor 50-41 on January 28.

Both teams have winning almost every game since then. Incarnate is on a 12 game win streak and make it five in a row for St. Joe.

As of late, Dan Rolfes and his Knights have been holding the upper hand in this hand to hand combat series.

Junior Sydney Stipanovich is eager to win and move on. “We’d all  like to go back to Columbia. This is it for our seniors Maddie and Morgan Stock,” she said. The dynamic twins will be in Mizzou uniforms next fall.

Maddie Stock comes into the quarterfinal game with a 17.8 scoring mark; 13.2 for Sydney Stipanovich; 10.3 for Morgan Stock and 9.8 for unsung hero Erin Nelson.

St. Joe put running clocks on their last three opponents with walk over wins over Webster Groves, Ursuline Academy and Jackson, MO.

Taylor Manuel leads IWA with a 15.4 points per game average. Cierra Young is hitting 10.4 points a game and Nakiah Bell, 8.6 per game.

St. Joe has been dominating the boards and blocking bushels of shots. Against the more physical IWA squad, the order may be more difficult.