A battle of American Legends

Prologue
Its the start of the local 3 week state tournament season.   The season breaks into 4 short parts.  We begin part 1 with opening round play.  Big and small schools in action tonight.  I decide to take in a regular season rematch in section 4AA.  That's St. Paul Washington at Minneapolis Edison. Edison won only 2 games after Christmas but one of them was at home vs Washington by 6 on the final Saturday of January.  Washington with only 1 played win after the holiday.  Its 12 vs 13 and while it may not be pretty, it should be entertaining.  If nothing else, the legendary American figures these names represent makes for a good title.  Late arrival so I leave the concessions alone.

Number of Teams I've Seen: 146 (165 games, 96 days, 51 buildings, 26 online)

Beverage Ticker: 1128.1 ounces (12410 Calories)

• Pepsi: 304.5 ounces (3800 calories)
• Coke: 229.8 ounces (2740 calories) 
• Dr. Pepper: 72 ounces (900 calories)
• Sprite Zero: 20 ounces (0 calories) 
• Sprite: 208.9 ounces (2480 calories) 
• 7 Up: 36 ounces (420 calories)
• Red Gatorade: 140 ounces (980 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: 28
• Walking Tacos:8
• Pizza: 22
• Pulled Pork Sandwich: 1
• Chipotle: 1 (thanks to Bethel staff and Chipotle Gal)

Game Time:
Story of the early1st half is Abdi Wasa Farah.  He scores the 1st 8 Edison points with a pair of triples.  Then he'll add a couple free throws, another triple and another bucket.  He has 15 of the 1st 21 Tommies points.  That helps Edison to a 21-8 lead at the 10:15 mark.  Edison also hammering Washington on the offensive board.  Edison's offense would leave them though as they go the next 7:35 with only 1 field goal.  Washington goes on a 11-2 run during that time.  Spoh Drew White with a free throw, triple and floater for 6 points in that run.  23-19 Edison at 2:50.  Edison finishes the half strong with 7 of the last 8 points.  Farah with his last points of the night on his 4th triple.  That gives him 18 at the break.  Edison 30-20 lead at the half.

Ahmed Mohamed 3 early hoops and 2 free throws for Edison.  White with a couple of left wing 3s.  Soph Zaveon Smith with a free throw and drive for 2 and the Edison lead is down to 40-36.  Then its another Mohamed bucket, this one via inbounds and Jackson Rusnacko with a 3 point play.  45-36 Edison with 12:09 left.  Then an Edison technical after a foul with 9:47 left.  Washington misses the front end of the bonus and then misses both technicals.  After the early rally, this is a deflating stretch.

Kshui Harris-McCalister with a 3 on the possession.  Then an Edison turnover and White turns that into a 3 point play.  Then Jackson Carver puts back his own miss and its an 8-0 Eagles run.  The lead is down to 1 with 8:35 left and its game on.  White adds 2 free throw to tie it at 46 with 7:53 left.  The offenses struggle but Smith converts a turnover and its Jamen Hines with the floater and Washington has the lead with 4:25 left.  Mokiller Timeout Eagles with 4:02 left and a 50-48 lead.  14-3 run for Washington as once again the Edison offense disappears.  1 FT this 8 minute stretch for the Tommies.

But Washington won't score another bucket.  Jermain Cornell with the drive for 2 and adds 2 free throws.  That keeps Edison within 53-52 with 2:25 left.  Washington turns it over and its Montrea Talabi scoring on a BLOB with 2 minutes left.  Tommies back on top 54-53.  Harris-McCallister with 2 freebies around an Edison timeout.  Then Edison misses and Washington promptly turns it over.  Edison can't get a look vs the zone and they'll turn it over with 48 seconds left.  Edison finally sends Harris-McCallister back to the charity stripe with 28 seconds left.  After a timeout to ice him, he calmly drains both.  57-54 Washington in the lead.

Then a wild ending.  Edison again not finding any offense and Jackson Rusnacko is fouled with 13 seconds left.  He misses both bonus free throws but Talabi gets not 1, not 2 but 3 chances at the miss and puts it back with about 5 seconds left.  Edison didn't take a timeout, TICK TICK TICK, but Washington lobs it in anyways when they could have just held it.  Its tipped right in front of the Edison rim and White may have gotten a way with a tick tack foul but barely comes up with it as time expires.  Washington wins 57-56.


Post Game
Edison finishes their season 6-21, 1-11 in the Minneapolis City.  Abdi Wasa Farah with all 18 of his points in the 1st half to lead the Tommies.  He knocked down 4 3s vs the Washington zone.  Nice job of screening the baseline guys in the zone to get open looks by the Tommies.  But they mysteriously got away from it in the 2nd half.  Most of the roster returns next season.

13 seed Washington advances to play at 5 seed St. Croix Prep on Thursday night in the 2nd round.  The winner of that gets an early Saturday afternoon trip to 4 seed Trinity.  Soph Drew White with 21 points and 4 3s to lead the Eagles.  I hadn't seen that level of shooting from him previously.  The game changed when he was the guy moved to the middle of the zone offense with about 10 minutes left in the game.  With the struggles the Eagles against that defense until then, its very surprising the move wasn't made much sooner.  Soph Zaveon Smith with 10 of his 16 in the 2nd half as the other Eagle in double figures.  Kshui Harris-McCalister came up big with all 8 of his points in the 2nd half.  He hit the clutch 3 after the technical to get the momentum started.  Then cool under pressure with all 4 free throws in the last 1:51.  Jackson Carver gave them a calming presence handling the ball amongst the Edison chaos.  He was the guy I was begging to see in the middle of the zone to see what he could create from there.