Henry Sibley at Apple Valley Thoughts

Varmah Sonie

The opening Friday night of the season takes the Czar on the miserable journey to Apple Valley (#9 Star Trib Metro Top 10) for their season opener with #2 Henry Sibley. Ken Novak Sr and DJ Peterson on hand from Hopkins. John Hedstrom from Minnetonka also in attendance. AAU represented by Tom Krosschell and Al Harris. Even John Millea of the Star Tribune showed up for this one.

Maurice Hernandez with a tip in to give Sibley the 1st 6 points at 14:30. Mike Rostampour comes off the bench and immediately shows his energy with a steal that leads to a Francis Bungue layin and its 11-4 Sibley at 13:15. After a lull, Chris Halvorsen with a nice jump hook, a dunk and a layup thanks to an assist and block by Mike Bruesewitz. 21-12 Sibley at 6:48. A Hernandez triple makes it 28-20 Sibley before Bruesewitz goes to the bench with 2 fouls at 3:25. Steve Parks with a miracle shot thru Jake Kreuser at the 1st half buzzer cuts the lead to 31-27 Sibley. 11 points for Halvorsen, Hernandez and Bruesewitz with 8 each. Thomas Shalk and Mitch Bires each with 8 points for Apple Valley.

Sibley gets 9 of the 1st 11 points of the 2nd half. Halvorsen with a triple and a steal for a breakaway dunk in the sequence. Shalk with another baseline jumper to cut the lead to 43-34 at 12 minutes. The play of the night happened inside 11 minutes. Bruesewitz down the right wing tries to go up for a monster 2 handed dunk over Varmah Sonie that would be a play of the year but gets fouled and goes down very hard on his right shoulder. He temporarily left the game for treatment but did come back within 20 seconds of game time. Off a Bungue steal, Bruesewitz pulls up and buries a dagger triple. Halvorsen with a dunk off a nice inbounds set (we'll look at it in the X and O segment) to add spice to a 13-2 Sibley run over 4 minutes that put the game away. 56-36 Sibley inside 8 minutes and they cruised from there. 70-47 Sibley wins.

Halvorsen with 18, Bruesewitz with 17 and 13 by my unofficial sheet. Hernandez with 15 for Sibley. Mike Rostampour was very active but also very foul prone as he fouled out. For Apple Valley, Bires with 13, Shalk with 12, only 5 free throws for Varmah Sonie. He had his way on offense getting whereever he wanted, but he didn't have a FG all night. He wasn't much of a factor either on defense when AV played man. They did have some success with a 2-3 zone though.

X and O of the Day
In the X and O segment, we look at the Halvorsen dunk to top off the game deciding run. The basics are this. Box set with Hernandez inbounding. Halvorsen steps out from the ball side block to the corner to receive the pass. The ball side wing then breaks out to get the 2nd pass. Hernandez then sets the back screen and they throw it up for Halvorsen who can go get it with anybody in the state. This is great 2nd half play because they run it as a counter to another of their nice plays which is the exact same motion but Halvorsen down screens for Hernandez for the corner three. So you lure his defender into looking for the corner shot and he forgets to help on the back screen.

Varmah Sonie photo courtesy of MNPhotoNet.net