Hawks recover against Eagles

Dana Kallman

Prologue
My Lake Conference tour de force wraps up tonight as I finally get in a trip to Chaska, the final school in the league that I hadn't seen a game at.  Its a varsity only night for me in this one vs Apple Valley so no concessions.  Tubby Smith is in the building along with former Chaska and Gopher star Spencer Tollackson.  Biggest news is the return of Ross Travis for Chaska.  Only 1 game (and probably minimal minutes in that one vs Eastview) since January 19th.  How big of a factor would he be?

Game Time
8-3 Apple Valley on an Isaiah Thomas putback.  Then Jacob Meyer starts his hot night with a 3 and tack on a Jake White 3 for 9-8 Chaska lead at the 14:35 mark.  Tyus Jones to the line at 13:59 mark and greeted with a "Middle School" chant from the Hawks students.  He makes 1 of 2 and then a nice lefty finish.  11-9 Eagles at 12:50.  Tom Schalk with a jumper, Jones to Zach Johnson for 3 and Schalk for 2 off the out of bounds play.  20-15 Apple Valley before another Meyer 3 is countered by a Schalk putback and foul (FT no good).  Max Watts carried off with an apparent ankle injury on the play.  20 all with 8:41 left in the half.  Anthony Webber with a jumper and a White stickback put the Hawks up 4.  Then Thomas with another putback and then Jones finds him for a layup.  Then Jones off the high horns screen nails a 3 to end a 7-0 Eagles run.  29-26 Eagles at the 5:10 mark.  Zach Johnson with another 3 off the horns set and then a set play for him for another 3.  35-30 Apple Valley.  Jones with 2 free throws to counter a Webber bucket.  Jones then with a grab on an inbounds and its called an intentional foul which is totally awful.  Then the official has an attitude to boot.  Meyer makes the freebies but give the ref credit as he correctly called a charge on Chaska on the possession despite jawing at coach Goring right before.  Then he gets into it with coach Kallman.  Few things worse than an official with a bad attitude.  Meyer with a sweet reverse layup and then nails another triple in transition before the half is out.  43-39 Apple Valley at the half.

Schalk with a layup and Jones for 3 again off the horns set.  48-41 Apple Valley as Chaska is totally dead vs the 2-3 zone.  Coach Kallman gets a good timeout at 16:17 to try and get his team into some productive offense.  Chaska and Ross Travis awaken out of the timeout.  Travis with a putback and a pullup followed by a Meyer dunk in a 8-0 run to put the Hawks back on top 49-48 with 13:50 left.  Schalk with 2 free throws countered by a White postup at the 13 minute mark.  Then its Apple Valley's turn to spurt.  Schalk with a putback, Zach Johnson from deep, Schalk with a pet move of drive middle from the right wing with the left hand and then spin back right for 2.  Then he gets 2 and the foul inside on a block call that could have gone either way and would have been Schalk's 4th foul.  Jones then with a steal for a layup.  Travis scores to stop that bleeding but then Jones skips to Schalk for 3 more.  64-53 Apple Valley with 9:20 left after a 16-4 run.  Chaska with no energy and no good idea on the offense end.

Chaska still has a run in them as they go back to the 1-3-1 zone.  White with a 3 point play, Meyer with a bomb, Travis with a putback, then White with a nice pass out of the post to find Travis for a dunk and a turnover brings Chaska back the other way and Travis goes up and throws down a lob.  Crowd is jacked up.  Timeout Apple Valley after they turn the ball over.  Chaska tracks down a miss and the ball finds Meyer for another triple and Chaska has come all the way back.  68 all with 5:35 to play as Chaska uses their own 15-4 run.  Zach Johnson again from deep with 3:15 left and Apple Valley is up 5 but Meyer immediately counters that.  Then Apple Valley turns it over and Chaska runs a set for Meyer who buries his 7th 3 of the night.  74-73 Chaska with 2:15 left.  Schalk with a layup on the other end to put Apple Valley back on top with 2 minutes left followed by an unforced Chaska turnover.  Apple Valley holding against the 1-3-1 before White comes up with a clutch block with 1:15 left.  Nate Auer fouled and makes 2 freebies to put Chaska back on top 76-75 with 1:04 left.  Apple Valley pushes to half court and takes timeout.  After the timeout, the ball is back in play and out go the lights.  Only light in the court area is scoreboard over halfcourt.  A small delay and we have lights again with the coaches getting a nice laugh about it.  Jones turns it over against the zone with 29.6 left and Schalk fouls out.  Alex Prince misses the front end of the bonus and Apple Valley has a chance to win it.  Jones drives right baseline and goes into the trees and its short.  Ball tipped and out of bounds to Chaska with 4.9 left.  Travis outjumps everybody for a dangerous inbounds lob at halfcourt and takes it for a layup that ends a 78-75 Chaska victory.

For Apple Valley, Tom Schalk leads the way with 15 of his 25 points in the second half.  Tyus Jones 19 points mainly from a horns screen and roll set.  14 of those 19 points in the first half.  Zach Johnson 16 points, I had 5 3s on my sheet.  The Eagles fall to 19-7.  They stay 1 game in front of Lakeville South and have 2 wins over the Cougars so expect them to get the 1 seed in section 3AAAA.

For Chaska, Jacob Meyer 7 triples and 27 points on the night.  Jake White 19 points but with the exception of the late block, was very quiet late.  Ross Travis 16 points and had a nice spurt in the big run that got Chaska back in it.  I would have liked to see him be much more active, specifically at the top of the 1-3-1.  Chaska finishes the regular season at 15-11.  They're looking at probably the 3 seed in section 2AAAA and a home game against Bloomington Jefferson (who also plays a ton of 2-3 zone) in the first round.  Jefferson was ahead by 5 at the half in the last meeting without Ross Travis.  Then a possible rivalry game against Shakopee in the semis.

Photo of Chaska head coach Dana Kallman courtesy of MNPhotoNet.net