. What a great and unpredictable night of basketball. The committee is very proud of it's prediction rate as being almost always right 83.2 % of the time. That all went out the window last night.
Bottom line #8 North St. Paul will be playing #10 Maple Grove for the championship Thursday May 4 7:30 at the Minneapolis (Crystal) stake center.
At St. Paul , in the first quarter final game the top seeded Lake Nokomis continued their streak of bad luck in the tournaments by being even at half time with North St. Paul, but in a game that " more resembled a rugby game than a basketball game, NSP got hot and Lnok. Got cold and NSP pulled away and won handlily.
In the other quarter final Plymouth/Minnetonka and Elm Creek were nip and tuck all game with Plymouth/Tonka winning by one in a game where both teams had chances.
In the Final four game, the two evenly matched teams. They played earlier with Plymouth/Minnetoka winning by one. The game went back and forth with the final 3 minutes lasting about 25 minutes. Trialing by one with 3.4 seconds to go shooting an one and one. They miss the first free throw... however they get the rebound and the followup shot was blocked "Possibly fouled but not called" and time expired.
At Anoka in the first quarterfinal, Second seed TC1 lost a nail biter to Blaine. With 15 seconds to go and trailing by one TC1 drove to the basket missed the driving lay up and the rebound was knocked the up of bounds at the same time by both teams. Fortunately for Blaine the arrow was pointing in their favor. A last second three by Blaine sealed the deal.
In the biggest surprise #10 Maple Grove playing with out their best player, who left for Germany hours before the game, played #3 Shingle Creek who added their best player Dana Oelkers who played sparingly during the regular season to spend more time with his kid.
The game had the feel that Shingle Creek, which lead most of the way, was on the verge of pulling away the whole game. Every time they got a 5-6 point lead Maple Grove would hit a three or convert a three point play to keep it close.
Near the end when Maple Grove had to resort to fouling. The outcome came down to free throws. Maple Grove made almost all their free throws and Shingle Creek, normally very good free throw shooting team, missing many key free throws. Down the the final 15 seconds, Shingle Creek leading by 2 gets fouled shooting a three, thus three free throws to ice the game. However they miss all three!
With fouls to give Maple Grove is fouled, trailing by two with 2 seconds to go. Maple Grove had two excellent shooters they tried to work the inbounds pass to. shingle Creek doubled teamed both shooters, however they left the center unguarded by the basket and the passer saw him hit him with the pass and he scored a layup at the buzzer to send it to overtime.
Controlling the tap and hitting a quick three Maple Grove stunned Shingle Creek in overtime.
In the final four game a very tired and cramping Maple Grove team
played a stiff Blaine team to a close finish, with the score tied with 2
minutes to go. Maple a Grove hit a three and made their free throws to
win a close one.
Championship game Thursday May 6, 7:30 at Crystal
Put it on your calanders and spread the word,
SAMS LDS TRI STAKE GOLF TOURNAMENT SATURDAY SEPT. 9, 2017. More details to follow.
Men's' volleyball and young men's futsal meeting will be Thursday Sept 14, 2017 7:30 at the Anoka stake center.
Thanks for the wonderful season so far and all the help with officiating games, cleaning up, and the admiral sportsmanship.
No comments:
Post a Comment