Benilde St. Margaret's vs St. Thomas (AAA Championship)

Interesting matchups for the game. Jake Szymanski on Armond Battle, Fritz Waldvogel on Jordan Taylor, Armond Battle on Mike Fitzgerald. After Alex Schneider gets a bucket to tie the game at 4, Stu Neville with a big dunk from Jordan Taylor to start a 10-2 BSM run. STA starting off 2-12 FG shooting. Matt Thomas 2 3s in the run for BSM. Jordan Taylor with a pretty backcut and 1 with 10 minutes left in the half to make it 20-8 BSM. Schneider getting touches at will and doing all the scoring for STA. Halftime score 35-21 BSM. Schneider with 14 points but too many shots to get them (15). Jordan Taylor with 10 points on 4 for 9 shooting in the half. Ironically, BSM led the points in the paint 14-6 despite all of Schneider's touches.

Schneider looks to pass in the 2nd half as he hits Fitzgerald and Szymanski for 3s before getting 10 straight STA points. He had a half dozen kickout passes in the 1st 2 minutes of the half. After 6 of those 10 straight points for STA, its 38-33 BSM with 12:23 to play. With about 10 minutes left BSM tries to exploit the Battle/Szymanski matchup inside and they get a bucket out of it. Schneider hits Mike Ratelle for a 3 to make it 46-40 BSM with 7:30 left. Schneider gets put on Battle and fouls him on a 3 and Battle makes 2 of the 3 FTs for a 50-42 BSM lead with 4:17 left. Jordan Taylor making FTs down the stretch, but after Schneider tips in a Fitzgerald missed FT with 30.1 seconds left, its 55-52 BSM. Taylor hits 3 of 4 and STA can't score again. BSM wins the AAA title 58-52.

Alex Schneider with 27 points but needed 27 shots to do it and only 9 FGs. Absolutely amazing that BSM played behind him all night and he touched it on every possession until the end. I've never seen a kid get as many post touches in a game. He really struggled on any move he made over his right shoulder. He was much better on moves (including a reverse layup) when he went left shoulder. But he almost always went right (right handers usually want to go left). Last FG for him before the late tip-in was at 8:15. Armond Battle with 14 for BSM. Jordan Taylor with 20 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists. He gets 8 of the last 12 BSM points in the last 6 minutes to seal the deal. No doubt in my mind that he's Mr. Basketball regardless of what Anthony Tucker does in the AAAA final.