Whitefish Bay Domincan vs DeLaSalle observations

Dominican came into tonight's game 14-1 and ranked #1 in Division 3 (MN 2A). Their only loss was to a Racine Horlick team at Christmas that has a star forward like DLS does. I saw them in both games of that Christmas event. Very little different from them tonight so it was fun to watch.

DLS uses a 10-0 spurt near the end of the 1st half to get a 27-15 lead with Royce White starting to really dominate, but Jerrel Harris gets a gift goaltending call and hits a 3 in the last minute and a half so its only 31-23 DLS at the half. White has 14 points and looks unstoppable. AJ Barker chipping in nicely with 11 so those 2 have 25 of the DLS 31 pts. Kwamain Mitchell quiet with only 3 1st half pts and 2 fouls which cost him minutes. Harris has 9 and Mark Pace gave Dominican a nice lift with 3 pick and pop jumpers from 18 feet to have 6 first half points. Nice adjustment by Dominican in their screen/roll offense to always have the guy Royce White was guarding set the ball-screen so that White wouldn't be near the basket to contest and clog driving lanes.

It's 33-28 DLS when White picks up his 3rd foul with 14:39 to go and he goes to the bench. Jerrel Harris gets hot and he's got 8 points in the half with Bryce Hawkins getting 4 in a row to carry the DLS offense. 39 all at 11:15 and White is back in the game. He immediately gets a bucket. A Mitchell 3 makes it 42-41 Dominican at 10:20 for their 1st lead in forever. White picks up his 4th foul and has to go to the bench again at 8:38 with DLS clinging to a 45-44 lead. Dominican gets quick buckets from Mitchell and Pace to take a 48-45 lead with 7:52 to go and it looks like DLS is really on the ropes. Jeremy Randle makes 2 FTs and for some unknown reason Dominican goes to their slowdown game. That's the 1 thing DLS wants so that they can buy Royce some time. That doesn't mean to run and gun and shoot 3s to get a lead, but you don't take the air out of the ball which is what Dominican did. Wise gets 2 but Hawkins responds inside with 2 of his own. Dominican turns it over and Royce is back at 5:38 and DLS is only down 50-49. He promptly gets fouled but misses the front end of a 1 and 1. He goes over the back to get the rebound and he's gone with his 5th foul at 5:13. Now that delay game makes some sense. Despite a 5 count on Mitchell its 51-49 Dominican at 4:30 left. Tim O'Keefe hits 1 of 2 FTs with 3:44 to go. JD Wise gets a great bounce on a 3 from the corner to make it 54-50 Dominican with 3:20 left. Harris misses the front end of a bonus at 2:44 and Hawkins makes 1 of 2 at 2:27 to make it 54-51. Dominican still in the delay game but Jeremy Randle gets a steal and makes 2 FTs with 1:31 left to pull DLS to 54-53. Wise forces a bad shot at 1 minute left out of a timeout but Mitchell gets a steal and a layup with 30 seconds left to put Domincan up 3. Hawkins hits 2 FTs at 14.1 and Mitchell is clutch by hitting both ends of a 1 and 1 at 12.3. DLS has 1 last chance and Jeremy Randle gets a decent look at a 3 but its no good and Dominican wins 58-55.

For Dominican, Mitchell has 14 2nd half pts and he shares the team high of 17 pts with Jerrel Harris. JD Wise with 14. Give them lots of credit for making that late 1st half run and making plays when they needed to. It would have been really interesting to see how the late game would have unfolded if White would have been in there. But Dominican was the better team tonight and all credit to them. Impressive win for them as they get ready for state tournament play in 2 weeks.

For DLS, White finishes with 18, Barker with 13, Hawkins with 11. After 25 combined pts from White/Barker in the 1st half, those 2 only get 6 combined in the 2nd half. Hawkins with 9 of his points in the 2nd half when he really carried the offense. He's really a brute at 6'4 and he's only a sophomore. He's a scary inside presence for DLS in the next 2 years. They also have a JV player that I thought was similar. Not to mention the load of guards that they'll have coming thru the system. With White, Barker, Jaspers, Evan Williams and Hawkins all back next year, that's scary.