Salivating over small schools

Prologue
Its a trip to the Salvation Army in St. Paul at Park Christian makes their annual mid-January trek to the metro for a Friday night/Saturday afternoon pair.  The Sal not known for its concessions so I make sure to stop for dinner first but dessert is on the menu with the usual Kit Kat.  Good crowd of Park Christian fans and they brought their cheerleaders on the road trip.  The parents even stand until the 1st Falcons basket.  Good stuff.  Its not often I get surprised but I walked into the gym to find out its a girls/boys doubleheader.  Even better as that's my version of running up the score.  As Ernie Banks said, let's play 2!  CHOF girls get a 50-39 with 5 juniors starting.

Game Time
Now to the main event.  Liked a couple of the simple but effective warmup drills that Park Christian used.  CHOF short-handed with a group of starters missing this week's games.  Park Christian guard Matt Moberg with a quick couple of buckets and then fouls to keep him out the last 16:23 of the half.  6'5 center Hunter Nickel too much inside for a small CHOF lineup.  He scores 10 quick easy points.  But frosh Kit Piepkorn knocks down a pair of triples to cut the Falcons lead to 23-20 at the 8 minute mark.  A couple of Lions turnovers and Park Christian goes on a 7-0 run to push the lead to 10.  Piepkorn with his 3 bomb of the half to keep the Lions within 30-23.  Park Christian with their own star frosh Zach Kvalvog.  He drives for 2 and knocks down a 3.  Then he finds Nickel on a repost, something the Falcons do that you see almost nobody else in high school do.  Love that.  Jay Hanson 5 in a row and a buzzer beating 3 from Duncan Hannestad for a 13-2 Falcons run to end the half.  45-27 Park Christian at the break.  Only 1 CHOF field goal in the last 6 minutes.

Moberg back in to start the 2nd half and he immediately scores.  He then finds Nickel for a dunk and knocks down his own jumper.  Then 2 quick fouls put him with 4 but is a blowout so leave him in there to get his time.  The run across halftime ends up being 19-2 in not quite 7 minutes.  The lead gets to 29 and it looks like we'll have running time.  But CHOF scraps and Park Christian didn't defend well in the 2nd half.  They still roll 84-56.

Post Game
For CHOF, frosh Kit Piepkorn with 4 3s and 18 points on my sheet (though I may have missed a bucket).  He's a better shooter with a quicker release than I remembered.  He had 31 against Braham on Tuesday.  Junior guard Nate Johnston with 15.  The Lions fall to 4-7 but its a young team that doesn't really have a good win.  They hope to be at full strength next Tuesday at home vs St. Agnes.

For Park Christian, center Hunter Nickel leads with 18 points, 14 of those in the 1st half.  Just too tall and agile inside.  But he's still raw to a certain extent as he had a chance to have 30.  Matt Moberg with 12 of his 16 in the 2nd half and he racked them up in a hurry.  He saw limited minutes due to foul trouble.  Liked frosh Zach Kvalvog with 11 points and a nice job pushing and moving the ball.  He had to have a handful of assists easily.  Funky shot setup but if he gets set, he's got range.  5 of the top 6 coming back next year for this crew as well.  The Falcons are now 10-3.  Ranked Ulen-Hitterdal got them earlier in the year by 17 and they will likely meet again in the 6A North subsection final.  That subsection is crazy with those 2 and Ada-Borup having very good records and everybody else outside of Hillcrest struggling.  The Falcons cross the metro to play at Southwest Christian in an afternoon game Saturday to finish their trip south.