This is officially my #100 post and I wanted to make a special one. I want to thank all the people who view the blog as well as several of the MIAC coaches that look at it as well. I've been unfiltered for most of my life and I will continually have a difficult time changing that (my brother always said my mouth will get my rear-end kicked someday, still looking for that day). I will use profanity a lot in my normal conversations because that's what I've always done. I prefer not to be politically correct because I think it's stupid and it takes the fun out of a lot of things. I will always been sarcastic and I will never change that.
Things I will do on this blog; a) never call out a person individually whether it be a player, ref, or another coach (especially this since we are a fraternity, some people forget that), b) tell it how it is, whether, we made a mistake on coaching, whether our players are giving enough effort, or whether or not I think our players aren't getting a fair shake (though probably a little more subtle now), c) try to add humor when ever possible, and d) my writing will be like my talking, never will I say that I'm the best writer (maybe the best looking one) but I don't want to seem like some stuck up idiot. And there is my rant for your viewing pleasure, now to the game.
Friday night we headed up the frozen tundra known as the Fargo/Moorhead "metro" area. Just to be clear, THIS is how cold it was up there. Yesterday, it was a solid -20 degrees as a normal temperature and the wind chill was -33. Beautiful conditions up there. Before yesterday's game, the Piper men's hoops team was 1-15 in their last 16 trips to Moorhead. Not exactly sure what it is about their gym but it's always a tough place to play for everyone in our conference. Probably didn't help that during that time Hamline has had one winning season, hmmmmmmmm.
Concordia has a couple of guys that had been playing their tails off over the last couple of games, all three of them seniors. Both Darrin Olmscheid and John Fraase are left handed and about 6'5". They certainly create some matchup problems for us and being left handed doesn't exactly help the problem. Erik Lien is another senior that comes off the bench and has been shooting lights out from 3. They have been playing with some "senior urgency" and that is evident in their team's play.
We said we need to get off to a good start and not be forced to battle back on the road. It's certainly something we have been fighting throughout the whole year. Well, we got off to that good start and led 29-13 with a little under ten to play in the first half. Andy Voigt came off the bench and played great on the offensive end with eight first half points. Josh Pratt hit a couple of 3's and certainly gave us a spark. After taking that big lead, we got a little stagnant on the perimeter and started settling a little bit. Halftime score, Pipers - 39, Cobbers (I know creative nickname and LOGO, I like it) - 29.
The second half was very much back and forth throughout the first 11 minutes of the half as we our lead hovered between seven and 11 points. Then Concordia turned it on. They seemed to have an influx (big word, I know) three point plays and they kept on chipping away and finally got the lead to one with 6:25 left on the clock. At that point in the game we all of a sudden decided that we all wanted to be one on one players and we tried to make plays on our own instead of with the help of our teammates. Andy made a big basket followed by two Levi Wenrich free throws to get the lead back up to five. We then trading and one's and then our guys really stepped up.
Noah Aguirre made a great left handed drive with a score, Carl got an offensive rebound and scored, and then Noah hit a monstrous 3 to push the lead to nine and put the Cobbers on the edge. We then knocked down our free throws down the stretch and came away with a huge 77-65 road win. This was a game that we desperately needed to create some separation within the league standings. We are now 9-7 overall and 7-4 in the conference and currently stand two games behind both Carleton and Gustavus and one game ahead of Augsburg.
We were led by Carl's usually double-double with 14 points and 13 boards (seemed like he had a lot more than that). Mike also finished with 14 as well and finished with five assists as well. Noah finished with 12 and had seven BIG points in the last three minutes. Andy played great and finished with 10 points in 13 minutes of play. We held their top two scorers (Olmschied and Fraase) to 18 points and 7-26 shooting. Can't ask for better defensive production after they combined for 53 points in their last game.
Interesting stats that go along with the league standings. We'll look at all the teams in the conference except St. Thomas (only loss is league loss) and Macalester (only win is league win)
2nd Gustavus - 2-3
2nd Carleton - 1-4
4th Hamline - 2-3
5th Augsburg - 5-0
6th St. Olaf - 5-0
6th Concordia - 4-1
8th St. John's - 4-1
9th St. Mary's - 5-0
10th Bethel - 3-2
Quite interesting to see that all the teams that have below .500 non-conference records are in 2nd thru 4th place. So, it would seem to make sense to play a challenging non-conference schedule to prepare yourself for conference play. Just something to think about at this point in the season.
Next up, the Johnnies from...you guessed it, St. John's. We play them at their place on Wednesday in our only game of the week. I don't believe that they have live video for the game but they should have radio and live stats through their athletics' website.
Also, congrats to our hockey team who now stands alone in the first place of the MIAC standings for their sweep of St. Thomas this weekend.
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