Eagles out muscle the Aggies for cookies

Prologue
To St. Agnes for my 1st viewing of the season of New Life Academy.  Its the last game before Valentine's Day for New Life.  That means New Life forward Drew Wynia's grandma has valentine's cookies for everybody.  That even includes innocent old me as there's a labeled plate of 3 cookies set aside with my name on them.  How sweet (and smart bribery).  Not good for the waistline with the sugary coating but they were well worth it.  Speaking of Wynia, Augsburg was in the building watching him tonight.

Number of Teams I've Seen: 138 (125 games, 76 days, 44 buildings, 23 online)

Beverage Ticker: 943.2 ounces (10480 Calories)

• Pepsi: 292.5 ounces (3650 calories)
• Coke: 169.8 ounces (2020 calories) 
• Dr. Pepper: 48 ounces (600 calories)
• Sprite Zero: 20 ounces (0 calories) 
• Sprite: 168.9 ounces (2000 calories) 
• 7 Up: 24 ounces (280 calories)
• Red Gatorade: 120 ounces (840 calories)  
• Red Powerade: 40 ounces (260 calories) 
• A&W Root Beer: 36 ounces (510 calories) 
• Mug Root Beer: 12 ounces (160 calories) 
• Barq's Root Beer: 12 ounces (160 calories)

Food Ticker:

• Hot Dogs: 26
• Walking Tacos: 6
• Pizza: 18
• Pulled Pork Sandwich: 1
• Chipotle: 1 (thanks to Bethel staff)

Game Time:
The size advantage for New Life was very evident from the get go.  Drew Wynia 3 interior hoops, a high low feed and New Life with a block that leads to a layup.  New Life jumps out to a 13-3 lead at the 12:30 mark.  The lead extends with Wynia scoring 2 hoops and adding an assist.  An extra pass finds Mark Rygh for 3 and the lead balloons to 28-12 inside the 4 minute mark.  St. Agnes getting some good looks but nothing going in.  Not to mention the difficulty of the small guards finishing against the big Eagles front line of Wynia and Zach Thor.   34-17 New Life at the half.

St. Agnes extends their man defense in the 2nd half.  It speeds New Life up which does cause some problems.  Makes you wonder if they should have gone to it earlier.  Despite that a bucket and offensive rebound for 2 free throws from Wynia keeps the lead at 21 with 8:28 left.  But that press does allow 1 push from the Aggies.  Marcus Johnson 2 buckets and Kentale Morris for 3 off a turnover plus a Tom Gutzmann steal for a layup.  The New Life lead is down to 52-40 inside of 6 minutes left.  But St. Agnes would get no closer.  New Life does a nice job of getting their bigs to the middle to break the pressure.  Soph Jacob Brezny for 3 to keep the lead at 13 with 4:02 left.  But St. Agnes is out of gas.  New Life breaks the pressure for layups and St. Agnes can't hit a shot.  Eagles score 12 of the last 14 points to win 71-48.

Post Game
For St. Agnes, Marcus Johnson with 10 of his 14 in the 2nd half.  Nobody else in double figures.  Soph Jacob Brezny with a pair of 3s and 8 points as the next top scorer.  The offense generated good looks but it was one of those nights.  The small lineup wasn't going to get much in the paint so with shot not falling, that's a long night waiting to happen.  The Aggies fall to 6-15 overall.  They are 0-7 in the Tri-Metro.  They stay non-conference with a section game at St. Paul Academy on Friday.  Then they'll finish up east division play with home games against Concordia and St. Anthony next week.

For New Life, the size played its part.  Drew Wynia with 16 of his 26 in the 1st half.  The other half of the twin towers, Zach Thor, adds 13 of his 17 in the 2nd half.  Their size affected the small St. Agnes guard in the paint all night.  Plenty of high low action that was difficult to deal with in the half court.  Mark Rygh adds 18 points.  The Eagles did get rattled by the St. Agnes scrambling 2nd half pressure.  Expect them to work on that to prepare for section play as they'll definitely have teams try to speed them up come playoff time.  New Life awaits their seed for the MCAA tournament next week.  They are now 14-6 overall and 7-3 in the MCAA.  That's likely good for a 5 way 2nd place tie.  They'll visit Minneapolis Edison on Thursday.