The North Mercer girls survived a strong test from Hannah Sanders and the Milan Lady Wildcats on Wednesday night, winning a Milan Tournament semifinal game by a final score of 63-50. The win pushes the second-ranked Lady Cardinals into Saturday night's championship game against the winner of Thursday night's Brookfield/Green City semifinal game.

As per usual, senior Sierra Michaelis led the Lady Cardinals scoring attack in the semifinals, with 29 points. Junior guard Hayley Sample added 10. For Milan, senior Hannah Sanders went over 1,000 points in her high school career with a 29 point outing. Milan drops into Friday night's third place game against the Brookfield/Green City loser.

The Mercer boys rolled to a 61-43 semifinal win over the Green City Gophers on Wednesday night. For the Cardinals, Colton Hartley had 20 points, Caleb Wyatt 18, and Garrett Noe 11. Mercer will play in the championship game on Saturday night against the winner of Thursday night's semifinal between Linn County and Newtown-Harris.

Both of Wednesday night's semifinals from Milan were broadcast on KTTN FM 92.3 and 'Internet TV', available on www.kttn.com. Saturday night's championship games will be broadcast on Hot Country Z 101.7 and audio-streamed on www.kgozfm.com, but no video coverage will be available from Milan.

In consolation round semifinals on Wednesday night from the Milan Tournament, the Linn County girls beat Novinger 41-19, and the Grundy R-5 boys took down Brookfield by a final of 64-54. The Linn County girls will be in the consolation final on Friday afternoon at 5:00, with the Grundy R-5 boys in the consolation final to follow at 6:30.

Here is the THURSDAY night schedule from the Milan Basketball Tournament:

Girl's Consolation Semifinal at 4:30 PM: Grundy R-5 vs. Newtown-Harris
Boy's Championship Semifinal at 5:45 PM: Linn County vs. Newtown-Harris
Girl's Championship Semifinal at 7:00 PM: Brookfield vs. Green City
Boy's Consolation Semifinal at 8:15 PM: Milan vs. Novinger