Bethel

Last night we caught against another hot team in Bethel. Who is probably the school in the country that's mascot is the Royals and yet their main color is navy blue. They had won five of their last six games including beating second place Gustavus. They have some very capable scorers to go along with a very productive big guy, Nate Robertson. It was a must win game for both of us. For Bethel, they needed it to really have a chance at the making the playoffs and for us, we needed it to keep up with the 'Joneses' of the conference.

Game started with a bang (literally) for us as Ray Brown made a great pass to Carl Hipp for a thunderous one hand dunk. We built up a good lead throughout the first half and we up as many as 13 before Bethel battled back behind the pull-up jumper shooting of Daniel Baah. The halftime score was 39-35 in favor of the Pipers.

We were led by Hipp's 14 points and eight rebounds. Christian Taber, aka Danny Ainge, had a great first half performance with 8 points and a bunch of hustle plays. The Royals were led by Baah's 17 points on 7-9 shooting.

The second half was a back and forth contest until about the eight minute mark. We just couldn't get away from them. At that point, Nick Carroll had one of his three blocks on Baah's jumper and that led to a Ray Brown 3. We then hit two more 3's in the next three possessions, both by Brandon Rieg and got our lead up to eight. There was no looking back after that. Our offense was clicking on all cylinders and we got the lead up to 16 as time expired.

We were led by Carl Hipp's monsterous performance of 29 points, 14 boards, and 5 blocks to go along with a bunch of tipped passes. Ray had a solid performance of 16 points, 8 boards, and 6 assists. Brandon Rieg played his most complete game of the season with 12 points on 4-5 shooting from 3 and did an excellent job defensively. Danny Ainge (Taber) rounded out our double digit scoring with 11.

Bethel was led by Baah's 21 with only four coming in the second half. He also sat for a long stretch in the second half when they needed scores, not sure why. Nate Robertson had 19 on 4-13 shooting from the field. He was 11-12 from the line. His 63% foul shooting before last night went up significantly. Chris Vavra was the other double figure scorer with 13.

We have a huge game on Saturday at home against Gustavus. With the win, it could put us on the brink of a home playoff game. Our 14 wins tied the most amount of wins since the 1993-94 season. We now stand at 14-7 and 10-6 in the MIAC.

Thanks to Ryan Coleman from D3Photography for the photos.