Piracy on the open seas

Prologue
No jacket required (with apologies to Phil Collins) but shoes and shirt thankfully are.  Bring your skyway navigation device as we're off to Target Center for a rare mid-week double dip in the NW Suburban between Park Center and Spring Lake Park.  The Park Center girls pull away for a 25 point win in the early game.  Dain Dainja back in the Park Center lineup after a 2 week absence.

Song of the Day: Walk The Moon - Shut Up And Dance

Season Ticker:

• Number of Games: 104
• In Person: 73
• Online: 31
• Number of Teams: 143
• 4A: 50
• 3A: 32
• 2A: 22
• 1A: 19
• Non-Minnesota: 10 (6 Wisconsin)
• Girls: 10
• Number of Buildings: 35
• Number of Bands: 1

Beverage Ticker: 592.5 ounces (6610 calories)

• Coke: 92.9 ounces (1100 calories) 
• Dr. Pepper: 32 ounces (390 calories)
• Pepsi: 211.6 ounces (2650 calories)
• 7-Up: 12 ounces (140 calories)
• Sprite: 76 ounces (880 calories) 
• Mug Root Beer: 12 ounces (160 calories)
• A&W Root Beer: 24 ounces (340 calories) 
• Killebrew Root Beer: 16 ounces (250 calories)
• Fruit Punch Gatorade: 72 ounces (480 calories) 
• Berry Gatorade Zero: 12 ounces (0 calories)

Food Ticker:

• Hot Dogs: 16
• Pizza: 8
• Walking Tacos: 1
• Extras
• Reese's Peanut Butter Cups: 3 (630 calories)
• Lays Potato Chips: 3 (480 calories) 
• Doritos: 1 (150 calories)

Game Time:
Interesting rotation for Park Center with Josh Lewis and Dawson Rudolph in the starting lineup.  That moves Josh Brown and John Grigsby to the bench rotation.  Blake Remme a couple of triples and 2 more buckets.  Gabe Myren adds a couple of layups.  Spring Lake Park builds a 22-13 lead at the 7:18 mark.  Then Park Center starts to use their size against the small Panthers lineup.  DT Frierson 2 inside hoops.  Dain Dainja in the post for 2 more buckets.  Frierson then goes coast to coast off a bad 3 from Spring Lake Park.  Frierson runs for 2 more and Dainja inside again.  12-0 run for a 29-27 PC lead late in the half.  Remme with 2 freebies and a nice spin move for the final points of the half.  33-32 Spring Lake Park at the half.

Grigsby with a pair of triples as PC opens up a 46-39 lead with over 12 minutes left.  Daydor Phillips with the difficult task of defending Dainja all game.  But he adds a triple, Jacob Say hits from deep and Remme with an emphatic dunk plus another triple.  That ties the game at 50 with 9:23 left.  Big man James Parker with 5 straight inside for PC thanks to 2 bullying hoops and a FT.  Remme and Phillips playing with 4 fouls as we go under 4:30.  Remme scores and then Dainja scores with 3:35 left.  60-56 Park Center in the lead.

Out of that Dainja bucket, he goes down in a heap grabbing his right knee.  He'll stay down for a good couple of minutes but good to see he's fairly mobile when he gets up.  But nobody expected him to be so mobile that he almost went directly to the scorer's table to check in.  He gets called back by the trainers to do some movement tests.  He returns when Phillips fouls out with 1:46 left.  Park Center makes 2 free throws and misses 2 others.  But they get both misses back which leads to 2 more free throws.  That pushes the lead to 8 to 1:21 left.  Dainja shows no ill effects of the injury as he blocks a shot, grabs that rebound, pushes it up count and finds Frierson for a lob dunk as icing on the cake.  #7AAAA Park Center wins 69-62.

Post Game:
Spring Lake Park falls to 11-3 overall and 5-2 in the NW Suburban.  That drops them out of a 3 way tie for 2nd in the loss column in the brutally tough West division.  Blake Remme 3 triples and 25 points to lead the Panthers.  Gabe Myren 14 points and a couple of 3s.  They have a tough home game with Armstrong on Friday.  Then the schedule lightens up with 4 straight crossover games.  I'll see the home game vs Elk River next Wednesday.

Dain Dainja 17 points, 7 rebs and 2 blocks on my sheet.  DT Frierson 14 points.  David Ijadimbola 9 of his 12 in the 1st half.  When Park Center pounded the ball inside, they got whatever they wanted from Dainja, Frierson or Parker.  Spring Lake Park tried to take Frierson's defender and back him off into Dainja's lap which was effective early on.  Pirates tried a bit of everything with the rotation.  Parker with and without Dainja.  Brown and Grigsby off the bench to provide a huge punch to the 2nd unit.  Josh Lewis with good minutes in the starting lineup from his guard spot.  The Pirates have a quick turnaround tomorrow at Rogers.

Saturday its the big matchup vs #1AAAA Eden Prairie at Anoka-Ramsey on Saturday night.  The snow does Park Center a huge favor as it seems like Dainja would not have played had the game gone on as scheduled last weekend.  Then there's the injury question from tonight.  Was there just a scary moment with nothing tonight or did he get thru in the heat of the moment and there's something notable there?