Lions Roar Back

Prologue
To the Salvation Army in St. Paul for some small school action.  Its Maranatha visiting CHOF.  The usual lack of concessions means I'll make a Chipotle stop before hand.  Vocal participation on both sides.  Maranatha bench digging out chants that you usually only hear at a girls game.  Maranatha coming in with 2 straight wins including a high quality section win vs Holy Family.  CHOF with 4 double-digit losses.  Great music all night from the 80s.  Eye of the Tiger and Jump just a couple of those plus the obvious Jump Around for the jump ball.  But tonight's tune is an instrumental movie theme from the 80s.

Song of the Day: Axel F - Harold Faltermeyer (Beverly Hills Cop theme)
Number of Teams I've Seen: 61 (36 games, 15 days, 12 buildings, 10 online)

Beverage Ticker: 216.9 ounces (2270 Calories)

• 7 Up: 12 ounces (140 calories)
• Coke: 32 ounces (380 calories) 
• Pepsi: 48 ounces (600 calories)
• Sprite Zero: 20 ounces (0 calories) 
• Sprite: 60.9 ounces (720 calories)
• Red Powerade: 20 ounces (130 calories)

Food Ticker:

• Hot Dogs: 6
• Walking Tacos:2
• Pizza: 4

Game Time:
Tight game early on.  McCaleb Alleman with an inbounds layup and a 3 point play for CHOF.  11-8 CHOF at the 12:27 mark.  Beijan Newbern converts a turnover into a 3 point play before 2 Alleman free throws.  Maranatha's pressure starts to take effect.  Clarence Daniels scores a turnover, Beijan Newbern dunks a lob on another and turns a 3rd into a 3 point play.  19-15 MCA at the 8:05 mark.  Newbern 2 more hoops before another Alleman BLOB score.  27-21 MCA inside the 5 minute mark.  Alleman adds a putback and triple sandwiched by 3 Travaris Ricks-Wesseh hoops inside.  Newbern converts yet another turnover and the MCA lead is 9 with 2:30 left in the half  Fouls a huge factor but no matter for MCA as their 10th and 11th guys to play each bury triples.  Newbern adds 2 more hoops.  47-35 Maranatha at the break.

Newbern puts back his own miss and Daniels puts back a miss.  That bookends a 10-2 Mustangs run to start the 2nd half.  57-37 Maranatha in cruise control as the starters get a break.  CHOF didn't get the message.  Alleman with a 3 point play and Jackson Rohlf off the CHOF bench with 3 straight triples.  That cuts the lead to 10 with 12 minutes left and all 5 starters head back to the scorers table.  Alleman adds another 3 point play, hoop and 2 free throws.  61-56 MCA with 10 minutes left.  Alleman carrying the CHOF offense but Daniels has all the answers.  69-60 MCA with 5:25 left.  Alleman drives for 2 free throws, makes a pair of bonus freebies and goes backdoor for 2.  69-66 MCA with 4 minutes left.  Newbern will hold hit for a minute before he drives and makes 1 free throw.  Its Erik Strandlund with a layup and Alleman with more bonus freebies. 70 all with 2:16 left.  Newbern with a clutch 3 point play with 1:54, CHOF scores and MCA will hold.  Before CHOF can get into their trap, a great pass finds Newbern underneath for a layup.  CHOF takes their last timeout with 35.9 left down 3.  It turns into a scramble and its Rohlf once again from deep to tie it.  MCA turns it over but Alleman can't get a handle on it.  We'll play overtime.

CHOF makes the 1st 2 free throws of overtime for their 1st lead in forever.  Then its Rohlf with a jumper and a Newbern travel.  Rohlf converts that as Alleman kicks to him for a knockdown 3 with 1:20 left to put CHOF up 5.  Newbern with 2 hoops but CHOF gets a layup and makes all 4 free throws.  CHOF comes from 20 down in the 2nd half to win 88-83 in overtime.

Post Game
Beijan Newbern leads Maranatha with 32 points, all inside attacking.  He had NDSCS looking on tonight.  Hakim Daniels with 12 points.  Clarence Daniels with 14 off the Mustangs bench. Both of them very active on the offensive glass.  Defensively they gave up 26 fouls leading to 37 free throws.  After a great win over Holy Family, this qualifies as a bad loss.  Maranatha falls to 2-3 overall.   They host Nova Classical and St. Agnes next week.

CHOF gets their 1st win of the year to improve to 1-4.  They play at St. Agnes and Minneapolis Edison next week.  McCaleb Alleman goes for 40 points on my sheet.  That was with only 1 3 pointer but 15-15 at the charity stripe. CHOF 32-37 as a team at the line compared to 9-18 for MCA.  Jackson Rohlf with 17 points and 5 3s.  All of those after halftime.  His 3 straight triples in the 2nd half completely changed the momentum. Erik Strandlund adds 13.