Rosemount at Jefferson Observations

Congrats to the basketblogger on getting married tonight. As to me, I'm at Jefferson in a relatively empty gym. Jefferson leads 12-6 at 12:30 on a Moses Alipate bucket. Rosemount closes to 14-13 with 10:10 to go in the half. Marcus Alipate comes in and picks up 2 quick fouls for illegal screens. Aaron Barmore and Moses score to make it 23-13 before a Tim Sauer bucket at 6:15 breaks a 9-0 Jefferson run over the last 4 minutes. Barmore picks up his 2nd foul at 5:03 and he gone for the rest of the half with Jefferson up 25-17. Rosemount gets the next 5 points before 4 from Jefferson and then 4 inside points for the Irish. Jefferson is struggling vs the 1-3-1 (Brommer in back) that Rosemount went to for the last 4 minutes or so of the half but they lead 33-27 at the half. Moses Alipate with 10, Aaron Barmore with 9 and Marcus Alipate with 3. Mark Wieloch with 3 3s for 9 points to lead Rosemount. Tim Sauer with 8, Andrew Brommer with only 2 as Sauer's defender is backing off to prevent the high low action to Brommer. On my highly unofficial stat sheet I had Brommer 1-4 FG, 5 Rbs and a turnover.

Barmore opens the 2nd half with a pretty backdoor layup. Wieloch hits a 3 to pull Rosemount to 38-34 with 16 minutes to play. Another Barmore bucket and 4 points from Moses extend the Jefferson lead to 46-34 at 12:35. Rosemount goes back to the 1-3-1 during this time but with Brommer on top. Interesting twist but he never dropped back in the lane in it to be a factor on the glass. They don't stay in this long, maybe 3 possessions.

Brommer starts to get it rolling with a putback for 2 and Sauer gets a 3 pt play for 5 quick Rosemount points. Troy Hoeppner gets 6 points, 4 from steals and Brommer has 8 points while Moses gets 5 straight Jefferson points and its 55-51 at 8:04. Brommer gets an easy lob bucket off an inbounds play and makes 1 of 2 FTs to make it 57-54 with 6:30 to play. Barmore gets another pretty backdoor bucket to make it 62-58 Jefferson with 3:25 to play. Then Brommer takes the game over.

Brommer gets hacked on a 10 footer off an inbounds play but makes it anyway (misses the FT). Marcus Alipate misses a layup. Brommer hits 1 of 2 again from the line and its 62-61 Jefferson inside 3 minutes. After a Jefferson timeout, Brommer gets 2 straight 3 point plays inside around 2 Barmore FTs and all of a sudden its 67-64 Rosemount with 2:04 left. 9 straight Rosemount points for Brommer in just over a minute. Rosemount goes 1-2-2 out of a timeout and Barmore quickly gets a bucket to make it 67-66 with 1:30 to play. Hoeppner misses 2 FTs, but Marcus Alipate misses a 3 with 35 seconds left, then Justin Maeck misses 2 more FTs with 27 seconds left.

Jefferson inbounds from halfcourt out of a timeout and they inbound to Barmore looking to hit Marcus Alipate for a screen the screener flare play that they've used this year and in the past. But Marcus isn't open and its chaos. Finally Nate Schlangen (maybe the 1 guy Rosemount wanted to shoot) puts up a corner 3 and its in an out. Loose ball and Jefferson gets it with the possession arrow pointing their way with 4 seconds left. Out of the timeout they had the ball underneath and put Barmore and Moses on the blocks with the other 2 guys in the ballside corner and top of the key respectively. Marcus Alipate is inbounding and they appear to look for the lob to Moses but instead the ball goes all the way out top to Ellis Libby who fires it back to Marcus in the corner who throws up a 3 at the horn that is no good and Rosemount gets a 67-66 victory.

Another tough loss for the Jaguars at home in Lake play. 2 pts to Kennedy, 5 pts to Eastview in a game they had won, Eden Prairie by 1, and now this 1 pt loss. Tack on a 8 pt loss at Kennedy, 6 pt loss at Rosemount, and a 3 pt loss at Lakeville North and they could have only 1 loss in league play (a home blowout loss to Burnsville). Aaron Barmore with 23, Moses Alipate with 20 but where was he on defense against Brommer at the end. Amazing how they had done such a good job all night and then just collapsed.

For Rosemount, I'm obligated to say that Brommer got it done in a big way tonight. After seeing him over the past 2 years and not being impressed, he was big with 20 2nd half points and 22 overall. Unofficially I had him for 22 pts on 8-13 shooting (7-9 2nd half) with 10 rebounds. Tim Sauer with a nice game of 15 points at the other big spot. When Brommer is at the high post and Sauer low with Wieloch on the perimeter that's tough to deal with. Wieloch finishes with 4 3s for 12 points. Good win on Rosemount's resume as they are fighting Eagan for the 4th seed in 3AAAA.