By now, any interested parties know enough about Eden Prairie and Hopkins to realize that Saturday’s Class 4A state championship game will be a good one.

Just ask the teams left in their wake.

“They’re super athletic, [and] their defense creates their offense,” Cretin-Derham Hall coach Jerry Kline Jr. said after Hopkins defeated the Raiders in the semifinals on Thursday. “When you’ve got guys like [Marvin] Singleton and [Zach] Stahl and [Joe] Coleman who are so athletic — if you don’t get a body they’re going to make you pay.”

And Eden Prairie?

“Their toughness is something we haven’t seen yet,” Osseo coach Tim Theisen said of the Eagles. “If you put the shooting with that toughness, like they did in the first game against Hopkins, they will give Hopkins a pretty good run.”

It’s the third meeting of the season between the teams, who split Lake Conference matchups.

Regardless of what happens Saturday, the final game of the drawn-out winter state tournament season guarantees some form of history.

Should Hopkins win, it would be the third title in a row for the Royals. It’s a feat no Class 4A team has accomplished since the current class system was established in 1997.

Eden Prairie is looking for a first-time double. No school has crowned both a boys’ hockey state champion and a boys’ basketball state champion in the same year, dating to the first boys’ hockey tournament in 1945.

Class 3A

The championship game in 3A is not likely the one many predicted when boys’ basketball playoffs began. But some upsets in the section playoffs shuffled the state tournament deck, and the surprises continued on the big stage. That leaves us with No. 3-seeded Orono vs. No. 4-seeded Columbia Heights in an intriguing title game.

Both teams have depth, but Columbia Heights is clearly led by Zach Lofton (56 points in two tourney games), while Orono leans heavily on Jordan Smith (51 in the tournament).

“They’re a great team,” Lofton said. “We’re going to have to pick it up.”