Tigers pounce at the buzzer

Prologue
One team that isn't officially on my coverage list now that they dropped down to AAA is St. Francis. But they have the talented forward duo of junior Cody Pennebaker and soph Matthew Bothun. With the Saints hosting section foe Fridley in what looked like a possible opening round game, that's enough to get my attention.

Game Time
Pennebaker with a strong start.  He has 6 points and a couple of dunks early.  Saints up 8-2 early.  Fridley counters with an 11-2 run of their own. Christian Crockett with a bucket and nice assist to Devin Williams in the run.  Now St. Francis needs a timeout down 13-8 at the 10 minute mark.  After a long delay (maybe a clock issue, couldn't tell on telecast), its Bothun with 2 FTs and a triple for a 19-17 St. Francis lead.  Next 7 to Fridley with Williams scoring 2 buckets.  Last 8 of the half to St. Francis with a Bothun 3 and Pennebaker spin for a 3 point play.  27-24 St. Francis at the half.

Pennebaker keeps it going with 2 buckets and a triple to push the lead to 38-29.  Williams keeping Fridley in it with 3-4 early FTs and finally gets Fridley's 1st hoop of the half at 13:20.  Micah Niewald and Eli elsen with triples around another Pennebaker steal and dunk. Tra'Vione Stevenson has his 3 rejected but he'll grab that for a 3 point play.  Nelsen another 3 and its Williams on the run for a layup with 8:35 left.  Fridley back on top 44-43 after a 15-4 run.

A momentum shift as Fridley gets called for a technical for touching the ball in the hands of the inbounder on a BLOB.  St. Francis converts the 2 technical FTs and adds a 3 point on the possession.  Pennebaker with a bucket and 1 of 2 free throws.  51-46 St. Francis with 6:15 left.  Crockett bonus free throws and Stevenson with a 3 to cut the lead to 1.  Bothun back in for St. Francis after a break.  Not sure if that was related to fouls or not.  He scores with 3:30 left for a 55-51 St. Francis lead.

Niewald with a floater and Williams scoring to tie the game at 55 with 2:35 left.  Bothun with 2 FTs, Saints add a stop and a Brady Johnson drive with 2 minutes left to go back up 2 possessions, 59-55, with 2 minutes left.  Stevenson makes 1 of 2 free throws and St. Francis turns it over.  Out of a timeout Fridley goes Horns ball screen look with Nelsen and Williams as the screeners.  Nelson wide open popping for the straight away 3 with 1:20 left to tie the game at 59.  St. Francis misses a good look with about 1:05 left.

Fridley grabs that rebound and they'll run offense until 9.2 left.  Out of the time out, we're back to the same screen and roll set just mentioned.  This time the Saints stay with Nelsen but there's 2 on the ball off the Williams screen and he's wide open at the rim for a layup with 1.1 left.  St. Francis takes timeout.  Their long pass is fumbled away.  Fridley wins 61-59

Post Game
St. Francis falls to 10-5 with the loss.  Cody Pennebaker leads the Saints with 25 points.  16 of those in the 2nd half.  Matthew Bothun 19 points and a bunch of blocks inside.  He also knocked down a pair of threes.  Nice performance from the sophomore.  Bjorn Hallberg adds 10 points.  Saints have 3 games next week including a trip to Mississippi 8 leader Princeton on Thursday in a battle of the top 2 teams in the league.  This was a big loss in terms of section play.  With Delano already having a win over Princeton who beat St. Francis, the 1 seed was already a stretch, but this will likely lock them into the 2 seed. 

Fridley improves to 5-8 overall. Don't be fooled by the record, 6 of those losses are to ranked Tri-Metro teams.  Fridley was 7th in the QRF in the section coming in to the game.  St. Croix Lutheran and Columbia Heights are still on the schedule.  But the big one is against Big Lake next Friday.  Win that and regardless of record and computers, they'd deserve no worse than the 5 seed.  A crazy person might even say they've had a ridiculous schedule and beaten St. Francis and Big Lake so give them the 2 seed.  Devin Williams with 21 points to lead Fridley.  A very active game inside for the forward.  Tra'Vione Stevenson 14 points and Eli Nelsen adds 13 big ones off the bench.

Four Factors

FACTOR	St. Francis	Fridley
Effective FG %	50%	43.6%
Offensive Rebound %	26.7%	39.1%
Free Throw Rate	34%	24.2%
Turnover %	24.6%	10.2%
Points Per Possession	0.97	1.03

Czar's Law takes a fall here again to fall to 85-18 on the season.  Fridley therefore as expected does win the turnover battle.  One of the prices of Bothun's blocks was that many of them were out of bounds so Fridley got them back.  Between 9 fewer turnovers and 10 more offensive boards, Fridley gets 15 more shots and makes 3 more.  That makes up for only 7-15 from the charity stripe.