Seeing all the shades of red

A busy week on the road with a trip to North St. Paul last week.  Then back to God's Country and The Old Kingdom for the Midwest Players Classic.  Change colors for a 1st viewing this year of Holy Angels and then its all red tonight for Benilde-St. Margaret's at Richfield in the Metro West.  Plenty of Pepsi and unfortunately some Coke too during the week.  Pizza and BBQ definitely keep the waistline happy.  North St. Paul with a quality home W over STA.  Minnehaha with a quality if not sad win for me over La Crosse Central (my alma mater).  Sun Prairie with a rock solid defensive outing and took care of it to upset De La Salle.  Minneapolis North with a tight loss over the #1 team in Wisconsin D3.  Another nice outing from Eli Campbell for the Polars. 

The stat of the weekend back home, Caledonia's bench outscored Mineral Point 36-0 in their blowout win.  Holy Angels blew out Brooklyn Center 81-66 on Tuesday.  The Centaurs down to a depleted 6 man rotation for that one while Holy Angels played without forward Thor Holien.  Frosh Emmett Johnson impressive for the Stars.

As to tonight, a nice preview of next year.  Richfield playing 3 sophs and 2 freshmen with 1 junior and senior in a 7 man rotation.  Benilde-St. Margaret's playing 5 juniors and a sophomore in their 8 man rotation.  Ugly offensive game early but BSM uses a 13-2 run to break out to a 28-21 lead at the break. 

Great sequence in the 2nd half for soph post Isaiah Casey Hammond.  He scores in the post.  Then on the next possession Richfield turns it over, he hustles back and forces a travel rather than recklessly trying to put the shot 8 rows up and likely fouling.  Then after another Spartans turnover, he denies the 6'9" Dylan Drees dunk attempt.  Frosh PG Mitchell January makes it pay off on the other end to pull Richfield back to even at 38 after being down by 10.

BSM counters that with a 7-0 run of their own.  BSM taking advantage of the bonus with 4 of 4 on the early bonus.  Meanwhile Richfield missed 5 freebies early in the half and then didn't get to the line despite being in the bonus early themselves.  Ryan Miles keeps Richfield close with a bomb and then a nice give and go in transition to cut the lead to 48-46 with 3:15 left.

But Walker Johnson scores to stop the bleedi4ng.  Drees stuffs Isaiah Casey Hammond in the post and Nick Peterson banks in a dagger 3 on the other end.  Drees and soph Derric Standifer convert Richfield turnovers and its over from there.  Benilde-St. Margaret's wins 59-54.

Benilde-St. Margaret's improves to 6-10 overall, 2-3 in the Metro East.  Then host Edina and Bloomington Jefferson next week.  Walker Johnson 12 points to lead the Red Knights off the bench.  Nels Birkeland with 8 of his 10 early and then the rotation just didn't allow him to get back on the floor.  Soph PG Derric Standifer with 10 points off the bench.  The BSM bench with a 24-6 edge in the game.  BSM also with 8 more makes at the charity stripe.

Richfield falls to 5-11 overall, 1-4 in the Metro West.  The Spartans have now lost 5 in a row.  They visit Highland Park on Monday night and then host Chaska on Friday.  Jeff Moore, Ryan Miles and Mitchell January all with 13 points for the Spartans.  The rest of the roster combines for 15.  The offense just never really looked in sync.  6 of the 7 rotation members are back next year with 5 of the 6 being underclassmen.  That includes the starting backcourt of January and Miles along with 2 young solid bigs inside.  It'll be fun to follow the progress.