Running around on opening Saturday

Ah yes, The Czar's favorite day of the week during the season returns.  Not quite the day I expected as I had to scrap plans to visit the Tartan Scrimmage and the Red Wing tournament.  But that meant I could visit the doubledip at Minnesota Transitions and still head over to Hopkins to see the 2 boys games at the end of the day.  With Kevin Noreen gone and Tom Dasovich taking over at Minnetonka, that leads me to...

Song of the Day
Times they are a changing - Bob Dylan

MTS vs Fond Du Lac Ojibwe
After sifting through a pair of taco in a boat (think tub of chips instead of bag of doritos), it was time for the boys game.  The MTS drum line and step crew in attendance.  Interesting that Fondy's had a transfer playing JV who was a pretty athletic 6'5 wing who surprised.  In the varsity game, 19-6 MTS after 8 minutes and then a 19-0 run by MTS really blows the game open.  67-12 at the half as Fondy goes 2-15 from the charity stripe and the Rodney Owens/Kyle Noreen duo combines for about 50.  One of FDL's stars, Travis Brown picks up 3 fouls in the 1st 5 minutes and then comes back at the 8:36 mark only to pick up his 4th less than a minute later.  Not that it would have mattered but it didn't help. 110-33 is the final.  Kyle Noreen goes for 37, Rodney Owens for 30 and Matt Lanier productive inside with 20 to be the 3rd scorer.  No Devonte Harvey on the roster in a surprise

Minnetonka vs DeLaSalle
DeLaSalle in full form while Minnetonka in the process of learning a new system. Not a good matchup and it showed.  13-7 at 12:13 then D takes off from there.  26-13 at 8:19, 32-15 and a buzzer beater 3 for a 49-25 halftime lead and they roll from there to a 87-67 win.  Nice additions of a flare screen as part of the DeLaSalle secondary break.  Bretson McNeal shot it well with 18 points and no answer for Jonah Travis inside as he had 22 points.  No Melvin Collins in the rotation was the biggest surprise.  Soph Luke Scott did see minutes off the bench for the Islanders.

Lakeville North at Hopkins
This actually turned out to be a much better game than anticipated.  Hopkins was up 13 in the second half and Lakeville North cut it to 8 twice late. But Siyani Chambers knocked down a pair of 3s in the last couple of minutes to put the game away and make the 73-57 final score look misleading.  Joe Coleman with 31 points and at least 9 rebounds in the stats I kept.  One of the storylines I'll be following with him this season is his outside shooting.  I had him 2 of 6 tonight.  Jacob Peterson just jumped into the MinnesotaPreps player rankings and he showed it with a quality performance inside.  He was effective with the righty jump hook over the left shoulder.  Lakeville North played without point guard Al Erickson who's out until Christmas and that didn't help against the pressure of Chambers.  But you have to like 6'6 athletic Tyler Flack on the wing (14 pts) and 6'4 forward Brett Rasmussen (19 pts) played really well inside.  He reminds me of last year's Taylor Hanson from Minnehaha.  With only 1 senior in tonight's rotation, keep an eye on North for next year.