Southwest at South Thoughts

Prologue
To Minneapolis South for the super, scintillating, sensational matchup between South and Minneapolis Southwest.  Nice to see South adds the Taco in a Bag this year.  Real iceberg lettuce in bigger pieces rather than the often present stringy lettuce.  But no salsa which takes an important element out.  Anoka-Ramsey and Otero JC from La Junta, CO (not to be confused with La Jolla, CA) in the building watching.  Ken Novak stomachs a half of the game before departing.

Game Time
For Southwest, its all zone all the time.  They start with a 1-2-2 trapping the corners and its something that South didn't deal with all that well.  Not that they got trapped but they didn't pick it apart either.  Ayrton Scott with 4 in a row for a 6-4 Southwest lead.  Alonzo Traylor counters inside for South before a 6-0 Southwest run puts them up 12-6.  Timeout South with 11:30 in the half and they look asleep.  The timeout does wonders.  Avery Dorsett with a pair of buckets off of turnovers and soph Carnell Sheppard finishes the 10-0 run with a 3 point play.  That run takes just under 3 minutes and gives South a 16-12 lead at the 8:43 mark.  20-17 South when Traylor picks up his 2nd foul at the 6:21 mark and he'll sit the rest of the half.  Samuel Island and Sheppard for 3 to push the lead to 7 at the 5:20 mark.  He makes another 3 at 3:15 to push the lead to 8.  33-27 South at the half.  Traylor 6 and 4 with the foul trouble. Sheppard 10 to lead South.  Laker leading scorer Matt St. Anthony with 11 to keep them close.

Scott spins for 2 at the 15:10 mark and the South bench is really unhappy.  Coach Hyser gets the T which also costs South the possession.  St. Anthony makes 1 of the 2 technicals and the possession is a turnover.  Traylor promptly scores on the block on the other end.  A 3 point play from Dorsett, Traylor inside for 2 and and Sheppard with a layup on a pretty pass.  Timeout Southwest down 46-35 with 11:54 left.  Derrick Boone for 2, Traylor with a short jumper and then Sheppard throws it up to Traylor for the dunk.  61-42 South with 7:30 to go.  Traylor picks up his 4th with 6:07 left but he stays in and doesn't foul out.  Southwest doesn't threaten again.  Traylor finishes his regular season career with a 3 point play and leaves to a nice ovation on senior night with 2:35 left.  South wins 74-58.

For Southwest, they fall to 2-20 (both wins over Edison) and host Harding to end the regular season tomorrow.  Then most likely they visit Hopkins in the first round of section 6AAAA play next Tuesday.  Junior Matt St. Anthony leads the way with 20 points.  Ayrton Scott slashed his way to 18 points.  A very young squad for Southwest with only 1 senior seeing major minutes.  They have a freshman point guard too who didn't play varsity tonight but I think he played JV.

For South, they finish the regular season 15-11 and are in the seeding mess in the middle of section 6AAAA.  They have the best record of the 4 teams fighting for the 3 seed but the worst power ranking.  Alonzo Traylor with 17 of his 23 in the second half along with 8 rebounds on my sheet.  He even handled the ball a little bit and took a pair of long jumpers that missed.  Carnell Sheppard with 10 of his 14 in the first half to help overcome that foul trouble.  With Sheppard in the backcourt and Traylor up front, South has proven to be dangerous with an overtime loss at North, a 5 point home loss to Johnson and a 9 point loss at Benilde-St. Margaret's.  Not to mention an early season home win over Osseo.