TRACY-MILROY-BALATON 76, ST. JAMES 36

The movie Black Panther is sweeping the nation, and a different kind of Panther, one that is blue and red, swept St. James out of the 3AA hunt with a running time 76-36 win at home Monday night. This game was to be my second option on Saturday. After the Austin v Albert Lea game I was going to go west to Tracy for the 3AA South quarterfinal. That game was moved to Monday, and, with TMB being the biggest fish out there (#121) I haven’t charted, it was off to Tracy. With a #1 seed vs a #8 seed you are not going to see a nail-biter, running time is the safer bet. That is exactly what I got tonight.

TMB put the vise on the Saints early with 21 total turnovers in the first 18 minutes of action. Most of those turnovers ended up as chip shots within five feet of the basket. As a result the Panthers shot 62% and were coasting at 48-16 at the break. The Saints, when they got shots off, were a respectable 42%, but they only had seven shots in the first half. TMB’s Evelyn Dolan alone outscored SJ in the first half with 22 points. She almost matched the SJ total for the game with 33 points in only 18 minutes of action. The undersized post was able to create space inside and she does have some elevation in her shot. She finished the night shooting 84% from the floor missing only three shots. The second half did not move the needle very much and the Panthers were in running time by nine minutes, when the clock becomes unburdened. The TMB starters had a pp100 of 143.8. The seniors did make an encore reentry for 30 seconds at the six minute mark to say one more good bye to their home court.

TMB is now 26-2 on the year. SJ finishes the year at 5-21. A word on St. James—-they were 0-25 last year, so there is movement in the right direction.

Clearly I have seen all the top 20 teams in AAAA and AAA. The smaller classes I can’t say that. In fact I am now venturing out to the three hour zone to see teams. Of the top 20 AA teams I have now hit 19 of the 20. I can also now claim to have seen all the #1 seeds in each section in AA (along with the two bigger classes). Class A is way behind. I have three of the top four done, but after that, going to the top 20, the number only goes up to six. I have only seen four of the potential 14 # 1 seeds in A.

In case you didn’t know, this was the last Monday games of the year. There will be no more Monday games in the next two weeks (unless there are weather issues this week).

 

Team	PP100	scorer	Distributor	D stops
Tracy-Milroy-Balaton	118.8	Evelyn Dolan 33	Kaylee Kirk 14	Kaylee Kirk 11
St. James	56.2	Jadyn Anderson 11	Two with 3	Jadyn Anderson 6

TRENCH PLAYER: 5-7 forward Evelyn Kirk of TMB