Veldman beats the buzzer

Prologue
A last minute trip out to Apple Valley to Lakeville South take on Eastview in a matchup of 2 of the 3 teams leading the South Suburban.  The pregame story is fellow hoops scribe Chris Monter challenging me in ping pong.  I ran my mouth on twitter before hand (if you don't follow me on twitter, shame on you, start now) and needless to say I got smacked in the teeth hard.  I lose 8 games to him with him using his off hand, 1 where he tuned up the band with the good hand and another where the good hand just showed up.  A perfect 0-10 mark.  Well done Czar.  So tonight's menu is a Smörgåsbord of crow and humble pie.  In reality the hot dog wasn't bad and 24 oz Pepsi after a thrashing does replenish the fluids.  Nice work by the elementary kids with the national anthem and the dance crew at halftime.

Game Time
Joey King is all of the Eastview offense early.  He nails 3 straight 3s and then finds Ben Oberfeld inside for a 3 point play.  12-4 Eastview at the 10:32 mark.  Meanwhile Jon Christensen is all of the Lakeville South offense as he scores their 1st 6 points.  Frank Veldman with a jumper and a 3 followed by King high/low for a 3 point play.  20-8 Eastview at the 7:37 mark and he'll get a rest.  That gets Lakeville South going.  Riley West with a 3 point play and Alex Richter to the rim for 2 more.  Eastview takes a timeout at the 6:19 mark and that's the end of King's rest.  Lakeville South gets out of their 1-2-2 with Christensen on top and sagging and goes man.  That means Richter and King go at each other the rest of the night.  Richter with a putback and Christensen with another layup to cut the lead to 3.  King off a baseline out of bounds nails his 4th 3 of the half but that's only Eastview bucket in the last 7:30.  Christensen nails another jumper from the key. in the last 30 seconds.  Its an 11-3 Lakeville South run over the last 7:32 giving up only 1 bucket.  23-19 Eastview at the half.

After another Christensen jumper, Chris Narum for 3 and a drive.  28-21 Eastview with 15:10 left.  South has another run in them.  Spencer Pankonin with a jumper out of the post, Matt Heller puts back a miss off a turnover, Richter with 2 free throws, West for 3 to tie it at 30 with 13 minutes left.  An Eastview turnover results in Richter going the other way for a dunk and that's the 1st lead for the Cougars.  He adds a layup to end a 13-2 Lakeville South run.  34-30 South with 11:25 remaining.  King with a putback at the 8:40 to stop the run and end a scoring drought of 4:45.  Richter draws a touch foul on King with 5:17 left.  That's King's 4th and he has to head to the bench.  Out of a timeout with 4:52 left, South sets up a nice lob for Richter and Veldman makes a spectacular block of it at the rim.  Veldman then drives and makes 1 of 2 free throws with 4:11 left to tie the game at 37.  Pankonin with a putback and Christensen with a steal and tough lefty finish with 3:17 left. 41-37 South and a good timeout from Eastview to not only cut the momentum but also to get King back in the game. 

Oberfeld singled up in the post and he channels his inner Kevin McHale with the up and under for 2 with 2:50 left.  Richter kicks out of the post and South misses the open jumper with 2:05 left.  King held on a baseline out of bounds before the ball was released.  He steps up and makes the clutch 1 and 1 with 1:41 left.  Tie game at 41.  Timeout Eastview and they show their own 1-2-2 zone.  South almost turns it over once and they get a post touch afterwards but its a walk with 1:03 left.  Eastview goes 5 out and holds until a timeout with 35.6 remaining.  They run more 5 out to run the clock down and they never do get into a set.  King doesn't it touch it late.  Veldman ends up with the ball high right side and has to make a play.  He drives left into the lane and the short 8 ft floater is good with 1.5 seconds left.  The clock runs out and the Eastview fans storm the floor.  But wait, South somehow got a timeout with 1.1 left.  Richter gets a look from halfcourt and that's no good.  43-41 Eastview wins by scoring the last 6 points of the game.

Post Game
For Lakeville South, Jon Christensen leads the way with 16 points.  He showed good range with the 17 foot jumper in the top of the key area.  He also had a couple of steals on passes back to the top that he took the other way.  Alex Richter with 11 points on a rough shooting night of 4-17.  Good aggression and he had a fair number of those misses where he may have been fouled, but I felt he also pressed too hard on some of those.  South falls to 12-4 and 1 game behind Eagan and Eastview in the South Suburban.  They're now 17-7 and probably lost a shot at the 1 seed.  Based on the remaining schedule, they could be anywhere from 2-4.  I'll have more detail on that in my weekly MN Preps column on Monday.

For Eastview, Joey King with 15 of his 19 in the first half.  12 of those in the 1st 12 minutes vs zone.  I had him shooting 6-12 from the field after a 5-8 start.  Frank Veldman with 7 of his 12 in the second half including the game winner.  He's a name you'll see later when I hand out end of season awards.  Ben Oberfeld 5 points and 11 rebounds on my sheet.  Eastview is now 19-4, 13-3 in the South Suburban  The Lightning have 2 winnable games next week at Kennedy and at home vs Jefferson to go for a share of the league crown (or win it outright with help from South at Eagan) and the top seed in section 3AAAA.  But note that Kennedy just beat South on Tuesday and only lost by 2 at Eastview a month ago.   Point guard Darin Haugh played through pneumonia tonight (and a surprising number of quality minutes considering how bad he felt).  If he's out, that puts a strain on the lineup.