No Poaching The Rhino

Prologue
Thanks to the snow (though not as much as expected), its a very quiet night on the metro schedule.  But that doesn't stop our Monday Night TCAC theme for the season.  A different game than planned but a good one none the less with Avail Academy taking on Liberty Classical Academy in a girls/boys doubleheader at the Target Center.  Considering how bad the roads were, I was impressed with the crowd turnover for the small schools.  Always fun to see the young kids get to take the court at halftime and between games.  More impressive was the Avail Valor mascot, a rhinoceros, big horn included.  The twitter discussion put him right up there with Hans of Melrose and the Johnson Governor.

Game Time
Offense was a struggle early on in this one.  Liberty with 2 early hoops to take a 5-2 lead.  Then the Lions would go 8:35 until their next field goal.  Avail scores 9 in a row during that time to take the lead.  Liberty would rally with Tom Conroy putting back a miss for a 3 point play and running for another bucket.  Liberty takes the lead 18-17 inside the 2 minute mark of the 1st half.  A couple of turnovers for Avail buckets to end the half.  Valor lead at the break 23-20.

Liberty starts the 2nd half on an 11-4 run.  That includes a Dan Drechsel runner in the middle of the Avail 2-3 and a triple.  31-27 Lions at the 14:39 mark.  A funny lane violation saves a free throw and a couple of Avail buckets tie it at 35.  Then its America's favorite BLOB for a corner 3 for Conroy, Avail with a 3 of their own and the teams trade buckets after that.  40 all with under 10 minutes to play.

Avail goes on a 9-0 run from there with frosh Josiah Loge off the bench for 3 and 1 of 2 free throws.  Joey Ritzema adds the final bucket of the run for a 49-40 Avail lead with 7:15 left.  Avail adds 8 of 10 free throws to push the lead to 57-44 with 4:28 left.  The rest is elementary and the teams even empty the benches in a 10 point game with a minute left.  Something you won't see in other games locally.  Avail wins 63-51

Post Game
For Liberty Classical Academy, junior forward Tom Conroy was outstanding with 26 points.  He knocked down a couple of 3s to go along with tough inside play.  Dan Drechsel adds 12 points, Ben Horn with 10.  Liberty falls to 7-2 vs league teams (not including the loss at Avail in their holiday tourney).  They also lost their last game at the other league leader Hiawatha last week.  Now they need help as they're done with both.  Assuming tomorrow is cancelled and Thursday is played, they have a home test with Shattuck St.-Mary's next.

Avail Academy remains tied with Hiawatha in the loss column in league games.  The Valor are now 7-1.  Junior wing Joey Ritzema with 16 points.  Frosh Josiah Schaap with 12 of his 14 in the 2nd half.  Hans Dykstra with a quiet 12 but 4-4 big free throws during the stretch run.  They were mostly able to handle the extended 2-3 and 1-2-2 zones that Liberty threw at them.  Only 1 3 all night for the Valor.  They continue league play at Groves on Thursday night weather willing.  Otherwise they'll host the team I originally planned to see tonight, Christian Life, on Friday.  Then the big game to break the tie on top at Hiawatha next Tuesday.