Eagles open strong

Prologue
A pair of heavyweights getting together as #4AAAA Eden Prairie made in the trip into the city to visit #7AAA Minneapolis Washburn.   Its the season opener for both teams.  Eden Prairie playing short handed without star point guard Grant Shaeffer and power forward Jack Cottrell.  New Washburn coach Jamin Cook bringing in a very young squad.  A disappointing hot dog by Washburn standards, their's are usually the best all-beef around (them and CDH).  That's the 4th hot dog of the season.  Beverage #10 puts me at an even 160 oz for the season.  A small crowd early on but the Eden Prairie students kept things even for the visitors. 

Game Time
Zach Hovey comes off the EP bench and provides a spark for the Eagles.  He immediately puts back a miss to ignite a 9-0 run.  13-5 EP inside of the 12 minute mark.  Washburn right back with 6 in a row.  Jeff Jones with a pull and then coast to coast and he finishes with a slick stop and go.  Timeout Eden Prairie holding a 13-11 lead at the 9:59 mark.  Andre Wallace with a putback and a pair of free throws as EP pushes the lead back to 6.  Jones once again strong coast to coast with a burst and taking a bump to finish a 3 point play.  27-23 Eden Prairie at the half.

Wallace with a pair of buckets and free throws in the first 3 minutes.  Washburn takes a timeout with 14:56 left down 35-27.  Anthony Anderson steals the inbounds out of the timeout for a layup and adds a pair of free throws.  That pushes the lead to 39-27.  Nick Anderson finally gets on the board with a tough runner with 12:47 to play.  Eden Prairie adds a 3 and then a blocked shot turns into a Wallace layup.  Just like that the lead is 44-29.  Washburn would counter with the next 7 points thanks to 5 from Corey Peterbaugh.  Timeout EP with 10:10 left up 44-36.  Anthony Anderson is in on the next 10 points and that allows the Eagles to run away.  He comes up with back to back 3 point plays, an assist for a layup and both ends of the bonus at the line.  A set shuffle look gets Wallace a straight away 3.  57-36 Eagles lead with 7:20 left.  That 13-0 run puts the game out of reach once and for all.  Eden Prairie goes on to win 73-56

Post Game
For Washburn, Jeff Jones was outstanding in the 1st half.  But somehow didn't get enough touches while the game was close during the 2nd half.  I was surprised at how much ball handling they had him do.  With 2 guys like Nick Anderson and Kevin Gleason (2 pure point guards), I wouldn't have expected to see him on the ball that much.  But it's something I wanted more of in the 2nd half when he only had 4 points.  Nick Anderson did end up with 3 assists but was shut down to the tune of something around 1-10 shooting.  Washburn has an interesting game at Hill-Murray on Friday and then they play Hudson, WI in the tipoff classic.

For Eden Prairie, Anthony Anderson was outstanding.  He scored 19 of his 27 points in the 2nd half and was too strong inside.  That made up for an off night from Andre Wallace who ended up in the 4-14 range from the field.  He still ended up with 16 points.  Sam Johnson 3 knock downs from the left corner on his way to 12 points.  A quality defensive effort as always from the Eagles.  The experience vs a young Washburn squad was very evident.