Raiding the race for the top spot

Healthy Heart Mascot

Prologue
Off to Roseville where the Raiders had a full house on hand for their Suburban East showdown with Woodbury.  Its Healthy Heart awareness night from the American Heart Association so both teams decked out in red warmup t-shirts and the fans getting into it as well.   No food tonight as I ate on the way but a game always requires a beverage.  20 ounces of Czar's favorite beverage Pepsi goes on the tally.  Woodbury Point Guard Robert Claypool not on the court tonight.

Game Time
Lucky 7s to start the game as Roseville goes 7-0, then Woodbury 7-0 then Roseville again 7-0.  14-7 Raiders at the 8:39 mark.  Then 3s start flying.  Mack Johnson for 3, Mario Franco and Kobe Critchley trade a pair of 3s.  23-18 Roseville at the 6:15 mark.  That's the start of a 17-6 run to end the half.  37-24 Roseville at the half but the fouls really starting to mount.

The fouls continue to add up as the start of the 2nd half a bunch of free throws.  First bucket is a Johnson jumper over 4 minutes into the half.   Jordan Burich was a defensive presence in the 1st half and what looked like an awfully good block gets him his 4th foul with 12:18 left.  He's the 2nd starter down with 4.  Then Woodbury's Diallo Powell gets his 4th and Logan Brown becomes the 3rd Roseville starter with 4 and we still have 11 something to play.  Mack Johnson for 3 and the lead balloons to 53-35 with 10:25 left.  Woodbury would keep within range thanks to a 12-4 run.  Mario Franco starts it with 4 in a row and Matt Ambriz gets 5 in a row.  Brown, Farmer and Powell all back in with 4 fouls with 8:38 left.  57-47 Roseville with 7:38 left as Brown fouls out trying to block a shot.  Roseville would close it out from there as they go on an 8-0 run.  That expands the lead to 18.  The Swing Offense kills the clock.  Roseville wins 74-52.

Post Game
In a rare road occurence for any team, Woodbury wins the foul battle 23-10.  Some of that due to the DDM system they run.  That didn't translate to much at the foul line.  Ultimately Woodbury just didn't make shots.  Mario Franco leads with 11 of his 15 in the 1st half.  Matt Ambriz with all 12 of his points in the 2nd half with 3 triples.  Star Renard Suggs 1-13 from the floor for 5 points.  His only field goal was less than 4 minutes into the game.  Woodbury did make 8 3s but their percentage wasn't there.  Only 2 field goals in the last 8 minutes.  Woodbury came in hot on a 13 game winning streak and were looking to seal the top seed.  The Royals fall to 20-4 overall and into a 1st place tie with Roseville at 13-3 in the Suburban East.  They finish up at home with Park and Mounds View next week.

Roseville gets 25 points on 4 3s and 12 rebounds from their leader Mack Johnson.  Kobe Critchley with 13 of his 17 in the 1st half to open up the lead with 3 3s.  Jordan Burich almost had a double double and with 3 blocks influenced the lane.   I liked the use of the Swing Offense (not because I'm a Badger fan) to make Woodbury defend for longer stretches.  The Royals are a team that wants to get up and down and they don't want to guard much.  The Raiders are now 19-5 overall and 13-3 in the Suburban East.  They have a sneaky home game with White Bear Lake on Tuesday before finishing up at Hastings.  Roseville with a loss could have been looking at the 3 seed.  Now thanks to the win and getting a Tartan loss to possible 7AAAA top seed Duluth East they could be looking at the top seed.

How do you seed it?
Woodbury vs Roseville, how do you vote if you're sitting in the 4AAAA seeding meeting?  Both teams have very similar CzarPI and QRF values.  Even the strength of schedule in the CzarPI is close (42nd vs 44th before tonight).  The teams split their head-head games with home wins.  Both teams were hammered on their own home floor by Stillwater.  For the other conference loss, Roseville has a bad loss at CDH, Woodbury gave up a 25 point lead and lost to East Ridge. 
In Non-Conference games of note, Woodbury lost to Buffalo but they have quality wins over Edina, Shakopee, Rochester Lourdes and Rochester John Marshall.  Roseville has 2 blowout losses to teams with kids going to the Big 10 (West Des Moines Valley and La Crosse Aquinas).  No real shame there.  They have quality wins over Holy Angels, St. Paul Johnson and Moorhead who have been or are currently ranked.  Definitely not the easiest of choices.  How would I seed it?  I'll answer that next week in my section previews.