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The boys basketball team had a rare Monday night game on March 3, and they traveled to Hastings with a bus full of players who were focused on securing another win before they had to face a skilled Mounds View squad on Friday.
The Hastings Raiders entered the contest with just one Suburban East Conference victory, but after the Rangers were defeated 71-60 by Park on Feb. 29, there is no reason to count on a supposed sure thing.
The Park Wolfpack had only won four times in the SEC this winter, but Forest Lake was the victim in two of those.
Understanding that the Rangers dismantled Cretin-Derham Hall and Stillwater immediately before the Park loss, it’s very clear just how cloudy life can be in the SEC.
“The Park game was tough for us,” head coach Dan Cremisino admitted. “We would have loved to have played better but we just didn’t.”
In both meetings this season, the Park story line has unfolded in the same, dreadful manner.
On the first day of February, Park went on a 22-1 run to break the game open, on the way to a 79-60 win. On the last day of February, it was a 23-1 stretch that doomed the Rangers.
“They are very physical, they take and make a lot of free throws, hit threes, and Jake Lindstrom kills us,” Cremisino said.
Lindstrom can light it up against anyone, and against the Rangers this season, he’s ripped off 31 and 25 points, respectively.
Forest Lake’s top two scorers last Friday — Brandon Phelps (13 points) and Brad Kopp (11) — totalled 24 points between them.
“We didn’t play together, make shots or hit free throws, and that is not a good recipe for us,” Cremisino shared.
Where the cooking was good was on Tuesday night, when the highly regarded Cretin-Derham Hall Raiders came to town.
When these two teams squared off in January, Cretin’s speed and athleticism overwhelmed the Rangers toward the end of the first half, as the Raiders eased into a 71-55 win.
On Feb. 26, Forest Lake watched Cretin (20-3, 13-2) pull out to a very early lead, but just minutes into the first half, the Rangers controlled everything from the tempo to the scoreboard, and locked up a 76-64 victory.
The defining stretch occurred near the end of the first half, with the score tied 37-37.
Forest Lake’s Ryan Brown stopped and popped for a pull-up jumper to take the lead, then came back down the court and drilled a three. A Raider turnover led to a difficult tweener shot made by Zach Riedeman, and that capping a short burst which gave the Rangers a 44-37 halftime advantage.
“Cretin was a big win for our program, especially coming on the heels of the Stillwater win,” Cremisino said.
“To beat the No. 3 and No. 7-ranked teams consecutively was affirmation that we can be pretty good when we play together.”
Kopp was the leading scorer with a career-high 24 points, but he felt the W was earned on the other end of the floor.
“I think our defense really stepped it up, and we’ve been working hard on that in practice,” he said.
Even when his team was down early, Kopp said they weren’t concerned.
“We knew if we just played our game we would be all right.”
“We out-rebounded, outshot, outworked, and took care of the ball better than they did,” Cremisino added. “The telling stat [for the Rangers] was shooting 75 percent from the line and 53 percent from the field.”
Back on track
After seeing its six-game win streak fall apart to the Wolfpack, Forest Lake (17-8, 9-6) scrambled for another victory on Monday, with a 62-59 defeat of Hastings.
The boys were down 13 at the break, but came back in the second half behind Riedeman’s 16 points, 14 from Griffin Lentsch and 12 by Brown.
The team finishes the regular season at Mounds View (19-6, 11-4) on Friday, and then opens section play on Tuesday, March 11, where the No. 1-seeded Rangers host Duluth East at 7 p.m.
Box Score
Cretin-Derham 37 27 — 64
Forest Lake 44 32 — 76
Cretin-Derham Hall — Binns 1, Floyd 29, Tillman 3, Esch 4, Hannon 5, Henderson 11, Nance 11
Forest Lake — Lentsch 10, Brown 14, Phelps 5, Cremisino 2, Kuefler 3, Young 2, Kopp 24, Riedeman 12, Person 4
Fouled out — CDH, Esch. Free throws — CDH 15-20, FL 24-32. Three-pointers — CDH 7, FL 4.
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