St Nick not nice to St. Anthony

Prologue
To St. Anthony for their non-conference showdown with St. Paul Central.  Big slice of sausage pizza on the menu.  A rare choice of gatorade on tonight's beverage ticker.  Santa in the house plus plenty of other santa hats.  The night is completed with the outstanding St. Anthony band.  We get a xylophone and a cowbell from them.  Drop the microphone.  As is tradition a band tune gets our daily selection.

Song of the Day: LMFAO - Party Rock Anthem
Number of Teams I've Seen: 72 (46 games, 20 days, 16 buildings, 10 online)

Beverage Ticker: 312.9 ounces (3340 Calories)

• 7 Up: 12 ounces (140 calories)
• Coke: 52 ounces (620 calories) 
• Pepsi: 84 ounces (1050 calories)
• Sprite Zero: 20 ounces (0 calories) 
• Sprite: 80.9 ounces (960 calories)
• Red Powerade: 20 ounces (130 calories) 
• Red Gatorade: 20 ounces (140 calories) 

Food Ticker:

• Hot Dogs: 7
• Walking Tacos:3
• Pizza: 6

Game Time:
St. Anthony playing without starting point guard Tait Nelson.  Mickey Jah crashes thru the entire Central defense for a 3 point play.  Eli Forsline adds a layup.  Huskies take a 9-8 lead on a FT at the 13:33 mark.  All Central from there as they go on a 20-2 run.  Central dominating the offensive glass and forcing turnovers.  Bad combination plus St. Anthony goes 6+ without a field goal during that run.  St. Anthony is able to stabilize from there but they still trail by 19 at half.  Khai West with 8 in a row to push the lead to 26 in the 2nd half.  Central adds a triple and a nice 2 on 1 for a 3 point play and we get running time right at the 9 minute mark until just before the end of the game.  Central rolls 83-56.

Post Game
Mickey Jah took over much of the ballhandling responsibility with Tait Nelson out.  He leads the way with 14 points.  Aaron Smith with 1 3 in the 2nd half and 12 points.  As mentioned above turnovers and the offensive glass just killed them.  St. Anthony falls to 3-3 overall.  They are 2-1 vs the St. Paul City.  They will visit Hill-Murray on Friday before playing in the South St. Paul holiday tournament.

Central improves to 2-2 with the win.  They have a tough home game with Roseville on Thursday.  Great balance again from the Minutemen.  They get 6 in double figures.  Ronelle Porter with 15 points running the show.  Daveonte Davis with 13.  Dion Ford, Luke McElroy and Khai West with 11.  Terrell Fountain adds 12.  All of those guys sat the last 8 minutes.

Strategy Session
St. Anthony tried guard Drew Nelson as their option to defend Central's star forward Daveonte Davis.  Nelson picked up 2 quick fouls in the 1st half and had to sit.  Then Davis went right at him inside in the 2nd half with success.  I think that also contributed to some of the early rebounding trouble that the Huskies had.  With the balance that Central has shown, he may been better served guarding either Porter or McElroy.