Northfield at Holy Angels Thoughts

Game 56 takes me to one of the venues that I see many games at, Holy Angels, for their early Missota Conference opener against Northfield. From the useless information department, only the 2nd conference game I've seen this season. Love the AHA concessions as they're one of the few places with pizza (and I believe its Dominoes which isn't a bad thing in my book). Always good to see (and hear) the AHA Public Address announcer, though he was fighting a new microphone tonight. Nice crowd from Northfield on hand for this one.

Northern Colorado recruit Emmanuel Addo off with the 1st 2 of the night for a 2-0 Northfield lead. The Raiders get the 1st 7. RD Brown with a bucket and 1 at 13:48 to cut the Northfield lead to 11-10. Addo with 5 points in a 17-5 Northfield run over the next almost 6 minutes to give Northfield their biggest lead of the night 28-15 with 7 minutes left in the half. Tyler Emanuel with 5 points and Bonzi Wells (to me, Sahr Ngekia to the rest of the world) with 4 in a 16-6 AHA spurt to almost end the half. But Bonzi fouls Sam Maus on a 3 with 2.9 left in the half to kill the AHA momentum. Maus makes 1 of the 3 for a 35-31 Northfield lead at halftime. Addo with 11 on 5-11 shooting and 6 rebounds. RD Brown with 10.

Andy Jirik with the 1st 4 of the half for the Stars and they've come all the way back to tie it at 35 with 15:11 to go. Addo and Bonzi trade layups before a 13-6 Raiders run over 2 minutes. 50-43 Northfield with 12:43 to play. Christian Shepley with the 1st 5 for Northfield during the run. Taylor Schroyer also with 5 in the run including a 3 point play to end it. But Holy Angels won't go away. Jirik with a nice lefty move to surprise Addo for 2 on the block. Brown with a nice reverse layin, Bonzi inside for 2 and Brown puts back a miss. With an Addo bucket in there, we're tied at 52 with 7 minutes left. Bonzi with 2 free throws to tie it at 54, 6 minutes left. Addo layin at 5:30. Tyler Emanuel with a triple at 5:10 for the 1st AHA lead of the night, 57-56. Nice baseline triple screen for him. Addo 1 of 2 FTs at 4:22 to tie it at 57. Bonzi then gets Addo at the 3 point line in the left corner and goes by him for 2. 59-57 AHA with 3:30 left. Dan Pengra with a layup. Addo commits his 4th on Jirik with 2:59 to go, but Jirik misses both FTs. Alex Bisch (in for Addo) gets a bucket on the block at 2:35, 61-59 Northfield. Jirik misses a jump hook from the right box at 2:10. Shepley with a bad shot that results in a Northfield turnover. That brings Addo back at 1:42. Tyler Emanuel misses a tough shot in the lane. Shepley then fouled outside with 1:02 left. He makes both, 63-59 Northfield. Bonzi inside for 2 with 38 seconds left. Pengra misses the front end of the penalty at 24.6 and AHA has life. They take time with 10.5 to go down 2. They find Bonzi on the right box, but he misses a hanger. Addo adds on the final free throw for a tight 64-61 Northfield win.

For AHA, they fall to 1-8. Bonzi Wells with 16 and 6 thanks to a very good 2nd half. 11 from Tyler Emanuel. Andy Jirik with 11 on my sheet and overall a nice night for him inside considering he was also guarding Addo. Star of the night though for AHA was RD Brown. The junior guard finished with 14 points on my unofficial sheet and 8 rebounds. The Stars have a brutal next 5 games with home games against Waconia, Edina and Washburn and then trips to Prior Lake and New Prague in the 1st official week of Missota Conference play.

For Northfield, Emmanuel Addo with 19 points and 9 rebounds (2 stls and 3 blks too) on my unofficial sheet. I had him at about 50% shooting. Everything was right side and go left. They'd feed him on the right box or let him iso from 15-20 feet out on the right wing. From there he showed a very nice ability to put the ball on the floor and get to the paint or close enough to it to score. At times, they'd go 1-4 high and give him a diagonal screen to that right box. But a pet play was a high screen/roll to the right side of the floor with Shepley and Addo. It'll be interesting to see if teams start forcing that play left away from where it wants to go and make the player in the left corner beat them. Christian Shepley quiet with 11 points. They have an interesting home game with Eagan on Saturday (Charlie Baker vs Shepley) before hosting Owatonna on the 17th to finish non-conference play (Steinbauer and Melcher vs Addo). That game could have big implications in the race for the #1 seed in section 1AAAA.