MAYER LUTHERAN 73, JORDAN 53

I continued my excursion in the Minnesota River Conference on Thursday night with two teams that had one conference loss and chasing the team I charted Monday: Belle Plaine. #8A Mayer Lutheran topped Jordan 73-53 in a tale of two halves. The trajectory at halftime indicated that the Crusaders were likely to prevail in running time with a 39-18 lead. The Jaguars started connecting from the field (moving from 18% to 40%) and they ramped up their 1/3/1 defense throwing ML off momentarily. But first ML increased their margin to 29 (49-20) forcing a Jordan time out three minutes into the half. Six and a half minutes later, with a run of 20-9 and two ML time outs trying to half the Jordan surge, the score was 58-40. The running time option was by then a pipe dream. Much of that change was the result of better shooting by Jordan. They went from a 50 pp100 at the break to a 97.2 pp100 in the second half. The big boost came with nine scores in ten possessions including three 3s in four possessions. Juella Mahto racked up nine of her team high 13 points in that burst.

Both teams racked up plenty of offensive rebounds on the night. ML won the OR battle 22-18 and dominated the regular battle of the boards 59-31. They also cashed in for 22 second chance points, Jordan’s had eight second chancers.

The taller Crusaders have three players rostered 6-1 or taller. Jordan has two players listed at 6-0. ML’s average starting height is 5-9.2. Jordan is 5-7.6. There were several times when a Crusader just reached over the top of the Jaguars for a rebound.

If you looked at the turnover count and saw a 10-24 differential you might be tempted to say the 10 turnover team was victorious. They were not. Even though the Crusaders coughed up the ball 24 times, Jordan had 13 steals. That is nine turnovers with the ML defense able to be set. Meanwhile Jordan had seven of their ten turnovers go for steals. Translated to a transition game the scales tipped to  ML 7/9 in breaks to only 3/6 for Jordan.

Jordan’s new coach is also an alumni (2009)—-Leah (Dietel) Aamlid. Last year her father Greg led the Jaguars.

This was the third straight game with a new facility (somewhat). It started Monday with Glence-Silver Lake’s new addition. On Wednesday it was the refurbished Minnehaha Academy. Tonight was my first time through the new ML entry/lobby area. The gym is the same.

Mayer Lutheran is 11-1 overall this season, 4-1 in the MN River Conference. Jordan saw a four game winning streak end and is now 7-4 for the season, 4-2 in the MRC.

	MAYER LUTHERAN	JORDAN
POINTS	73	53
REBOUNDS/OFF	59/22	31/18
TURNOVERS	24	10
2FGA/%	56/50.00	42/28.57
3FGA/%	10/40.00	33/24.24
FTA/%	7/71.42	8/62.50
PP100	100.00	73.6
TOP SCORER	Emma Lade 15	Juella Mahto 13

TRENCH PLAYER: ML sophomore guard Emma Lade with 15 points, 136.4 pp100 and a 29 score in the 31 Club.