Yesterday afternoon we took on the Cobbers of Moorhead in Memorial Auditorium on Concordia's campus. Yes, that was a mouthful. The Cobbers were coming off a win vs St Mary's on Wednesday. Their whole starting lineup is juniors so I would imagine they will be pretty strong next year as well.
We started the game on an 11-2 run as our guys were really getting after it defensively. We got a couple of steals got out in transition much like the St Olaf game. We were attacking really well and got a few of their starters in foul trouble. I believe we got up by as many as 15 in the first half. I was hoping that our guys would step on the throttle a bit to close the half. We did for the last two minutes and then gave up a layup at the buzzer to give Concordia was momentum going into the locker room. We were up 39-25 at the half.
To start the second half both teams went back and forth as it seemed te Cobbers inched back closer and closer as the half progressed. They got it within eight on numerous occasions led by Brady Baildon's aggressive play. I believe he had 8 points in the second half for a (I believe) career high of ten points.
After Concordia got it within eight for the final time we went on a 8-2 as we slowly pulled away. We ended winning 80-66 as we hit he magical 80 mark for the second consecutive game. We got a couple of good shooting performances from both Tyler Pannell and Christian Taber, as both of these guys hit three 3's. Dior Ford had his first of hopefully many double-doubles with 17 points and 11 boards.
After the game a woman approached our team and said "you should be ashamed of yourselves for the way your bench was acting." There was an issue with our bench in the first half and it was addressed immediately and taken of. For the almost the whole game, our bench was as energetic as it has ever been since I have been at Hamline. It gave us energy throughout the game as we certainly have to on the road. I was proud of our whole TEAM effort tonight.
I always wanted to wish Cobber Aaron Lindahl well. It looked like he injured his knee in the first half and didn't return.
On Tuesday we take on the Beavers of Cal Tech at 5pm in Hutton Arena. The smartest team in college hoops (MIT might argue that) is 5-2 right now and playing really well. Last season, they won their first conference game since Gregg Popovich was a D3 coach at LaVerne in 1985 (yes, he took the loss), a streak of 310 conference games. They are led by a 6'7" wing player who averages 21 points per game and a 6'4 point guard who averages 17 points, 7.5 assists, and 7 boards per game. This isn't the lowly Cal Tech team of the past. They will play Macalester on Monday before they head over to our place. A win will put us at 4-4 at the semester break.
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