Semifinal day at 2009 Tartan Tournament

Day 2 of the Tartan tournament had semifinals in the consolation and championship brackets. I was in attendance for all4 games. Here's what I saw.

Game 1: Centennial vs Rogers
Anthony Adams of Centennial on fire in the 1st half with 4 triples and 18 points. So much for being listed as a 6'4 center in the program. Centennial led 12-2 after 3 minutes. Burke Lendl (played for Howard Pulley this summer) then comes in off the bench for Rogers. Centennial blows the game open to 28-10 at 10:35. Lendl leads a run of 17-2 over 6:40 and the Centennial lead is only 30-27. But Centennial finishes the half strong with a 12-1 run. At the start of the 2nd half, Lendl goes up for a lob and comes down wrong on his left ankle. He doesn't return and the Royals are done. Zach Peterson (not the one of previous Osseo and Park Center fame) with a monster 2nd half inside. Centennial wins 82-63. Peterson with 22 and Adams with 18. Lendl led Rogers with his 13 1st half points.

Game 2: Elk River vs Harding
Some consolation for Harding, they score 18 points total in their loss to Tartan on Saturday and now they get another defensive minded squad in Elk River. Andre Creighton with 10 early points for Harding as the Knights use a 9-0 run to lead 15-9 at 11:25. Elk River wants to go 1-3-1 after the run but Harding holds the ball for 2 minutes passing back and forth over the top guy (prompting me to celebrate when the ball went inside the 3 point line) and they finally get a baseline jumper 2 and a half minutes later. Needless to say, the Elks came out of the zone. But Elk River goes on a 14-1 run before the half and they have a 5 point halftime lead. Coach Klasen must have talked about defense in the locker room because the Elks only give up 11 points in the 2nd half and cruise 66-34. It appeared that he was playing 2 5-man groups for set intervals and challenging each group to keep up the defense. Will Iverson, a 15U player I liked last summer, saw significant 2nd half minutes for the Elks. Nick Held with 16 points for Elk River. Andre Creighton with 13 for Harding.

Game 3: Prior Lake vs White Bear Lake
A battle of bigs didn't materialize early as PL's Deryck Ludwig got 2 quick fouls and WBL's Spencer Cummings followed suit not long after. Both saw limited 1st half minutes. 23 total fouls in the 1st half gave no flow to the game. WBL goes the last 7:20 without a field goal, but they're only down 28-25 at the break.

The second half of this one was exciting as no team got ahead by more than 4. PL took a 50-46 via a 6-0 run with 8:30 left, but WBL came right back with the next 5 and the game was back and forth. Ludwig commits a turnover and in the process of getting back decides to challenge the Dwayne Nabors layup and that's his 5th foul with 5:44 to play. Cummings with a layin on a nice over the top feed for a 62-59 WBL lead at 2:20. Ben Snyder uses a simple guard to guard ruboff for 2 to cut it to 1 15 seconds later. Nabors with a bank shot and PL's Jake Bolks with 2 FTs and its 64-63 WBL with 1:04 left. After a WBL miss, they get it back only to get called for 5 seconds with 38.4 to go. Bolks gets rejected but gets it right back for 2 and the foul on Matt Stang. Bolks misses the free throw with 25 seconds left, 65-64 PL. Ian Herubin (Ludwig's replacement) blocks Stang, but PL turns over the loose ball and Stang gets another look, this one a clean one from the left corner and its no good. Snyder makes 1 more FT for the final 66-64 Prior Lake win.

For White Bear Lake, Mitch Fiereck was lights out. 24 points a mittful of rebounds and a pocket full of blocks. 4 triples in their too. Very nice player. Spencer Cummings with 14 points. I'll be keeping an eye on 6'3 freshman Erik Gebeke down the road too. Fellow frosh Josh Tismer also saw some meaningful minutes. For Prior Lake, Ben Snyder with 20 points, but he forced a ton of shots. Deryck Ludwig limited to 7 points with the fouls. Jake Bolks with a productive day of 14 points.

Game 4: Tartan vs Spring Lake Park
The highlight matchup of guards didn't disappoint. Manani Beavers got the assignment guarding Shaun Jensen for most of the night. Tartan very effective with their high pick and rolls with Sonnen as he got whatever he wanted out of that look. SLP tried this too initially, then they spent most of the rest of the night posting Jensen up on the right box. They'd have Tyler Ylvisaker bring the ball up the right wing, send everybody else left and just enter the ball. Both Sonnen and Jensen with 11 in the 1st half. After a Trey Scott 3 tied the game at 29 on the 1st possession of the 2nd half, Tartan used a 13-3 run (2 Sonnen triples to start the run) to gain a 42-32 lead. SLP never got closer than 6 as Jensen forced many shots in the 2nd half trying to keep SLP in it. 75-61 Tartan wins. Marc Sonnen with 32 points(21 in the 2nd half as he wasn't going to let SLP back in it) and with 56.4 to play he became the 7th player in Tartan history to score 1000 points. Manani Beavers with 13 points. Max Ryan and Derek Peterson with nice games for Tartan as well. Sean Jensen with 31 and Trey Scott with 16 for SLP. Very strange how the SLP offense was so much about Jensen. This was not at all what I saw vs Mounds View last Monday. SLP is a team that normally moves the ball and gets everybody involved. Not the case tonight. Interesting move to post Jensen, even against the bigger Beavers. Also interesting that SLP had minimal trouble getting it to Jensen on the box.

2 comments:

  1. Ben Snyder of Prior Lake has to be aggressive. The team lacks fire power and Coach Samuelson wants him to score and try to draw contact going to the rim as much as possible. If he doesn't average close to 20 pts/game, they won't win many.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't have a problem with him being a goto player and taking many shots. But those shots need to be good shots and in this particular game, too many of them were bad shots which didn't have a worthwhile chance to go in. Something like 25 shots to get 20 points (don't know what the official stats were, this is just an example) isn't going to win games.

    ReplyDelete

Have a different take than mine? You can provide your take here.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.