Last night we took on the Carls from Carleton in a huge matchup. They came into the game riding a three game winning streak, while we were on a four game losing streak. We were hoping for both streaks to end. They had been riding high with the play of Scott Thiesen, who had been averaging close to 20 points per game during their streak. He's a tough player, on top of shooting the ball from 3 at a very high percentage over the past six or seven games. We had to keep him in check. It certainly doesn't help that their big man, Caleb Rosenow, kicked our tail when we played them in Northfield with about 25 points and 13 boards. Plus, it was a must win to keep our position for the playoffs.
The game started out decent for us as we were applying pretty good pressure in the first couple of minutes. Then, all of a sudden we forgot how to apply pressure. Our guard covering the ball was doing a decent job but everyone else was having conversations with their man on the other end. The Carls made us pay as Michael Grinnell got loose for 9 first half points and Shane McSparron had 11. Not exactly how best effort to start. We finally got things going with a couple of steals that led to easy baskets (ding, ding, ding). I thought we had a couple of opportunities to really push our lead but we could never extend it. Halftime score, 35-34 in favor of the PipeShow.
The second half was really tight and our lead never got over six points. Carleton made some plays and never backed down. Our guys definitely played with some urgency. We were patient for the most part on offense and knocked down some clock on a few possessions to get some easy scores. We did have a scare with about 5 minutes to go as Carleton got an easy basket to get them to two, followed by a steal and had a wide open 3 to give them the lead. It didn't go down, we got the board and scored on the next possession. That really deflated their sails. Final score, 68-62 in favor of us.
We definitely did some good things defensively again, forcing them into 21 turnovers. I think that is a lot considering the amount of possessions that have during the game. They tend to slow things down and really execute their offense. We outrebounded them by one and also held them to 1-12 shooting from 3. That is something we have to do again vs. Bethel tomorrow afternoon.
Like I said above, we play Bethel at 3pm on Saturday for our Senior Night. We will be honoring Brandon Rieg, Levi Wenrich, Mike Campbell, and student assistant Matt Farb. It should be a good day and hopefully will allow us to clinch a playoff spot with a win.
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