A Down and Dirty Cat Fight

Prologue
West to North to East and now to the South metro to end the week.  Its a catfight in Lakeville as the North Panthers host the South Cougars.  Coaches vs Cancer night as well for the small crowd on hand.  Both teams trying to gain the edge in the South Suburban standings.  The Fantastic Friday Feast brings me Spicy Chicken Rigatoni from Buca di Beppo.

Food and Beverage Counter
Mug Root Beer - 12 oz (170 Cal)
Pepsi - 12 oz (150 Cal)

1 Parlour Burger
1 Spicy Chicken Rigatoni
4 hot dogs

Game Time
It has not been a good 3 days of hoops for me.  Lakeville North starts the game shooting 2-19 from the field.  GAAAH!  The Bolsheviks would send people to Siberia for less.  I as your loving Czar of course would do no such thing.  Lakeville South gets their 1st 5 of the game from Avery Mast as they open an 8-1 lead.  South doesn't shoot it much better after that.  North has it within 14-11 at 7:17.  Reid Patterson heats up for South.  He converts a 3 point play and hits a pair of triples for the Cougars.  That opens up the biggest lead of the night 27-15 at the 3:20 mark.  South doesn't make another field goal and North finally starts to see the ball go in.  Nolan Winter with a triple in a 7-0 run to end the half.  27-22 South at the break.

That momentum carries thru halftime for North.  Cooper Laufenberger scores on an iso and Noah Nephew buries a left corner triple.  The Panthers run is 15-0 to take a 30-27 lead with 15 minutes left.  South finally breaks a run of 10 straight misses to stop the bleeding.  Sam Fliehe with a bucket and a 3 point play.  Avery Mast with back to back catch and shoot 3s.  Its a 14-4 run for South and they once again lead by double digits 47-36.  North claws their way back.  Frosh Jack Robison to the spin cycle for 2.  Sam McWell with the steal and finish.  South lead down to 50-48 with 2:17 left after the 12-3 Panthers run.  Lakeville South finishes the game off with 6-6 FTs.  That includes 2 from Patterson to ice it with 5.7 seconds left.  Lakeville South gets an important road win over their archrival 56-52.

Post Game
Lakeville North falls to 2-1 with the loss.  They host Eastview in another big league game on Tuesday before a trip to Eagan on Friday.  Cooper Laufenberger leads the Panthers with 10 points.  Will Blascziek adds 9, Noah Nephew with 7.  The mindset of a John Oxton team showed by hanging around despite the ice cold start and then getting down double digits a 2nd time and almost coming all the way back.

Lakeville South improves to 3-0.  They have an interesting week ahead with a trip to Rosemount and hosting Prior Lake.  Reid Patterson and Avery Mast each score 15 points.  Patterson with most of his damage in the last 5 minutes of the 1st half scoring 9 of those points.  He was held without a field goal in the 2nd half.  Avery Mast picked up the slack as he was a catalyst during the run that pushed the lead back to double digits after North had taken a 3 point lead.

Four Factors

FACTOR	Lakeville North	Lakeville South
Effective FG %	40.4%	48.8%
Offensive Rebound %	22.5%	25.8%
Free Throw Rate	19.3%	44.2%
Turnover %	11.5%	20.3%
Points Per Possession	0.85	0.95

I almost thought we'd get back to back violations of Czar's Law.  That didn't end up happening thankfully.  Lakeville North's 2-19 start totally torpedoed their EFG.  But they were 20-38 afterwards.  Overall they end up 2-14 from 3 which isn't like them.  Throw out the 0-10 stretch across halftime for South and they were 17-33.  They ended up only 9-26 from 2 but 8-17 from 3.  Go figure.  Overall hardnosed defense and mostly patient offense from both squads.  South's free throw rate slightly inflated by North having to foul 3 times at the end which accounted for almost a third of the attempts.