NOVA CLASSICAL ACADEMY 53, CRISTO REY JESUIT 40
With no top 100 teams playing tonight I opted for the biggest fish left in the QRF. That meant traveling to South Minneapolis to the Colin Powell Center to chart Nova Classical (currently #218) as they faced Cristo Rey Jesuit. I had previously charted CRJ at the St. Thomas Thanksgiving event. Both of these teams belong to the massive Twin Cities Athletic Conference and both will be exiting after next year for the newly formed Skyline Conference. As a coincidence, I was at another newly minted Skyline member last night: Concordia Academy. This new conference is a combination of private schools and includes teams from the TCAC, Tri-Metro and MCAA. And the similarities with last night don’t end there. CRJ (like Fridley) was the urban team; NCA, had the more suburban feel. But the temperature of the game was definitely dialed back a notch or two. The intensity of the fans was more sedate.
As for the game itself, the Knights beat CRJ for the second time this year. In the earlier contest NCA beat the Pumas 59-42. The Knights fell behind early 4-0, but with their balanced scoring (four players in double digits) more than off set the CRJ efforts of Kya Phillips, who led all scorers with 29 points. Phillips has the explosiveness to get to the rim quickly. She scored 12 points in transition. As a team CRJ shot 35% from 2s. Without Phillips that number dropped to 12%. As for NCA, they produced more in the first half with a 34-16 lead. Their pp100 was fairly healthy at 85 in the first half. The second half they took a severe hit as their overall number dropped to 65. As for individuals—-no one crossed the 100 pp100 mark.
In case you are wondering where NCA is located… it is found east of 35E and south of 7th street in St. Paul. If you thought NCA is in class A you would be one off. They are in AA while CRJ is in the single division.
This was my first time charting NCA in basketball. I have been to their gym and charted them in volleyball a few years ago.
NCA is now 11-7. CRJ is 5-12.
| Team | PP100 | scorer | Distributor | D stops |
| Nova Classical Academy | 65.4 | Hannah Rogers 14 | Hannah Rogers 8 | Callie Hohenhaus 16 |
| Cristo Rey Jesuit | 50.0 | Kya Phillips 29 | Madelyn Nolen 6 | Kya Phillips 15 |
TRENCH PLAYER: Hannah Rogers of NCA, two shy of a triple double.