Brama leads Huskies to big Tri-Metro win

Prologue
Hopkins vs Eden Prairie?  Been there done that so I got a chance to see Concordia for the 1st time this year.  They made the trip to St. Anthony with a 1 game lead on the Huskies.  Concordia could lock up the east division crown with a win.  St. Anthony could take the top spot away with a win as they would give them the 2-0 head-head tiebreaker thanks to their 55-46 win at Concordia in early December.  Pizza and Pepsi always a great menu.  Concordia coach Eric Schutte always the best dressed coach I see and his young son joins him on the bench also dressed in style, HA!  A young coach in the making, I'm liking that.  Very good sized crowd but no St. Anthony pep band for their most important home game of the year is a major disappointment.   Student section is in all black so that gives us today's theme.

Song of the Day
Black Hole Sun - Soundgarden

Game Time
Its a quick start for Concordia as 3 turnovers give Lorenzo Davis 2 layups and Christian Koehn another.  11-2 Concordia only 2:37 into the game and St. Anthony needs a quick timeout.  Davis is already on the bench with 2 fouls though.  21-11 Beacons at the 8:40 after another Huskies turnover.  Then Anthony Brama wakes the home crowd up with a steal and he goes the distance for the lefty jam and foul for the 3 point play.  That cuts the lead to 2.  After 2 straight Concordia buckets, Brama spins for a jumper, finds Stephen Couillard for a layup and makes 2 free throws.  That ties the game at 25 at the 4:24.  Cutler Finneman picks up his 3rd foul a minute later for Concordia as the fouls mount 10-4 against them.  Brama makes 1 of 2 free throws to conclude a 9-0 run for St. Anthony's biggest lead of the half 28-25 at the 2:58 mark.  Total Huskies run is 17-4 in just under 6 minutes.  But the rest of the half is all Concordia as St. Anthony rushes their possessions to quick shots.  Jeff Weber starts the run wtih a jumper, Davis back in the game for another drive and layup, then after a quick missed 3 Weber is fouled for 2 free throws with 0.3 seconds remaining. Couillard banks in a halfcourt 3 on the inbounds but after a conference its correctly waved off.  35-29 Concordia at half.

A quiet start to the 2nd half, but the fouls are 15-7 against Concordia at the 13:56 mark as 1 ref just won't give them a call and the other ref won't blow his whistle.  Darren Lawson with a putback, Couillard inside of the 2-3 zone, Brama from the short corner and a putback at 11:35 to finish a 9-0 run.  38-37 Huskies.  Lawson then picks up 2 quick fouls against Finneman and has to sit with 4 fouls at the 11:02 mark.  Lorenzo Davis finds Finneman for a layup and then drives for his own layup before a charge sends him to the bench with 4 fouls and 8:38 left.  42-40 Concordia ahead and Finneman picks up his 4th with 8:02 left but he'll stay in the game.  49 all with 5:14 left then business picks up.  Brama with the putback and the foul for a 3 point play.  There's also a Concordia technical on the play.  It appeared to be on Finneman which would have been his 5th foul but turned out he was still in there.  Brama makes both of the technicals.  Then another 3 point play to counter a Weber 3.  57-52 St. Anthony with 3:59 left and Lawson comes back in.  A tieup to the Huskies and Brama finds Lawson for a 3 point play.  Brama then with a putback.  Sam Wirth with a pair of putbacks to keep Concordia within 64-57 with 2:15 to play.  St. Anthony takes time with 2:06 left.  They bring the ball up and at 1:55 they get a timeout but they hadn't gotten the ball across halfcourt.  Should have been a 10 second call.  Weber gives the ball a spin in frustration and our non-friendly ref gives him a really cheap T.  An assistant complains and he'll get one too.  Just another example of an official with a serious attitude problem.  Brama makes 2 of the 4 technical free throws.  He tacks on 3 of 4 free throws to help ice the win.  He leaves to a big ovation with 14.7 left.  St. Anthony wins 75-64.

Post Game
Concordia ends up with 3 players in double figures.  14 for Jeff Weber, Lorenzo Davis 12 and Shane Taylor 11.  Cutler Finneman held to 9 points on 4-11 shooting.  While they start 4 senior guards around Finneman, there is Jared Schneidermann, a 6'6 soph to keep an eye on from the underclassmen. The Beacons fall into a tie in the loss column at 10-3 in the Tri-Metro East.  They finish league play at St. Croix Lutheran on Tuesday before finishing up with 3 non-conference games.  Even with the loss, hard to bump them out of the #1 seed in section 4AA since they do have the head-head win. Regardless of the officiating, when you go on the road and let the opponents top player have a big night, its tough to win.

No answers for Anthony Brama on this night, he goes off for 37 points and 17 rebounds on my sheet. 13-19 from the foul line (4-6 on technicals) and 12-26 from the field. He scores 17 points and assists on 3 more in the last 5:25. That was 20 of the final 28 points for St. Anthony. Darren Lawson 11 for 11 from the stripe to finish with 17 points. The Huskies were 31-42 from the line (9-10 after final 2 Ts when Concordia was fouling to stop the clock) compared to 9-15 for Concordia. The Huskies improve to 15-7. They're now 9-3 in the Tri-Metro East and with wins at Mounds Park Academy and at home against St. Agnes, they would claim the division via head-head tiebreaker. But they got a tough test at Irondale in a local rivalry game on Tuesday night. Bryan Sprang coming off a 38 point night in an upset win at #2AAA Benilde-St. Margaret's tonight. They're still in the race for a home game in tough section 3AAA as well.