Week 1 of the Breakdown Fall League

Wow, what a zoo out at Kennedy for the Breakdown fall league. 8 courts going for 6 consecutive sessions. 26 varsity teams so the early games had all 8 courts with varsity games, then middle games were all JV and 9th grade. Finally back to the final 10 games of varsity in the late session. Here's what I saw from the busy day.

Disappointing day for Tartan as they start 0-2. Granted no Marc Sonnen and I don't think they had Manani Beavers either, but they did have the Preiner twins and Troy Klingsporn amongst others so they had plenty of talent. Youth hurt them as they didn't have that experienced leadership to help out. But the games vs Lakeville South and a shorthanded Champlin Park squad were games that were very winnable.

TNL lost a tough one to Spring Lake Park (sans Shawn Jensen). After sprinting out to a 15-5 lead, SLP was able to get out to a 36-31 lead with 11:40 left. TNL stayed close the rest of the way, but ultimately couldn't get over the hill. Tough for TNL as most of their squad had already played back to back games in the early session (with Champlin Park and Devon Knopke with Burnsville) before their games in the late session.

(Czar's Note 10/19/08: I failed to note that TNL played without Jasper Duberry, Jay Sewer and Kyle Zimmerman. Zimmerman was out due to injury and Sewer was playing at the same time with Richfield.)

Chad Calcaterra joined the Columbia Heights squad for their games. Overall a quiet day for him. Jacob Thomas productive for CH. He had a nice drive for a dunk and a triple + a triple to end the 1st half to push CH to a 12 point halftime lead. The ending 8-2 run continues with a 24-5 spurt to start the 2nd half. CH rolls to a 66-36 win.

While that CH game was going on, Emmanuel Addo was putting on a show for Northfield vs New Prague. He triggered a 1st half 14-0 run with a free throw and a couple of nice outlet passes for layups. In the 2nd half, they start by giving him a full blown iso on the right wing which he converted. He gets an assist for a 3 and then went left and missed in and out. New Prague doesn't go away though. After being down 14 with 9 minutes left, they cut the lead all the way to 5 with under 4 minutes remaining. But Addo puts the game away by making consecutive straight away triples around a New Prague bucket. He even played point guard late in the game. 24 points and a dominating (and entertaining) performance. Northfield wins 63-51.

Its rare for me to comment on JV action, but in this case I couldn't help but notice the Forest Lake JVs during the middle session. Its fairly rare to see a JV squad execute their offense well for any length of time during the regular season. It was a pleasure to watch how precise the FL JVs were executing their 5 man open-post motion. While I'd like to see them execute their cuts harder on every possession, you can tell they're very well schooled in what they do.