SPRING LAKE PARK 48, IRONDALE 44

It was a little of R&R for Spring Lake Park Monday. The Panthers got revenge from an early season loss (59-49) and rallied from a five point deficit with five minutes left to upend Irondale in the Northwest Suburban Conference. Both teams clearly had a case of the Mondays with neither team cracking 70 pp100. This was a classic sandwich game. SLP had a strong start building a 15-4 lead after nine and a half minutes, and then closed in the final five minutes with a 14-5 spurt. That means the Panthers “won” the start/finish (14:30 worth of game) 29-9, while Irondale dominated the middle portion of the game 35-19 (21:30 worth of game).

Key factors in the win: A +9 turnover differential for SLP. The Panthers’ used the man to man defense to limit open looks. Irondale only cashed in one three pointer. It is true that bigger Irondale out rebounded SLP 44-38, but only managed to grab 8 offensive boards, or 24% on that end. SLP was one percent better at 25% and had 12 o boards. This was also a free throw-a-thon with a combined 61 attempts. Irondale ‘won’ that category, but both teams were only able to convert at a 60% rate.

After recovering from their poor start, Irondale hit their stride and finished the half in front 23-20. There were six lead changes out to 30-29. A put back by Sarah Loken gave the Knights their widest lead 39-34 with six minutes remaining. The game did a 180 to SLP at the 1:47 mark after a steal and lay up by Jocelyn Talso. After the basket, there was an extra elbow given to her which the officials noticed. She cashed both free throws and the Panthers never trailed again. That initiated a six straight scoring run by SLP. Joelle scored on a driving lay up on the next SLP possession. Together, both Talso’s combined for 32 of the 48 Panther points. Even so, the game was in the balance 17 seconds left, SLP up 46-42, and Irondale at the line for two. The Knights came up empty on both and SLP added another insurance free throw.

 

These two neighboring schools (2.4 miles apart) are recent newcomers to the Northwest Suburban Conference. They are refugees from the old defunct North Suburban Conference.

If you are wondering why there are over 100 games in action on this Monday, you need to look to tomorrow’s caucus night for the answer. Since most of the venues for the caucus are public schools, the action moved to today.

Half time 23-20. 65[57

 

With the addition of SLP I have now charted all 64 AAAA teams this year. This also completes the Northwest Suburban Conference and section 5AAAA.

SLP now improves to 5-14 overall, picks up their first section win at 1-6 and is now 2-11 in the NWS. Irondale falls to 13-8, 3-3 in 5AAAA and is even up 7-7 in the NWS.

 

Team	PP100	scorer	Distributor	D stops
Spring Lake Park	66.7	Joelle Talso 17	Joelle Talso 6	Madi Ngene 16
Irondale	60.3	Sophie Findell 13	Two with 5	Kahlan Jester 18

TRENCH PLAYER: Joelle Talso of SLP