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Glen Strandberg
Sports Editor
Leading up to the title game on March 19, the Section 7 Class 4A boys basketball postseason had progressed without any upsets or surprises.
Chalk, it’s called, where the favored team wins and the higher seeds march onward.
On Wednesday night in Elk River, Forest Lake hopes that trend continues, when the top-seeded Rangers take on Cambridge-Isanti and its No. 2 seed (check www.forestlaketimes for results).
The Bluejackets reached the championship after sneaking off with an 81-80 overtime victory against Anoka in the opening round, before defeating Blaine in the semifinals — for the second time this season — 72-60.
Forest Lake arrived on the doorstep of a state berth by putting up matching 69-point efforts on the way to knocking off Duluth East, 69-44, and the Coon Rapids Cardinals, 69-57.
In last Friday’s win over the Cardinals, the Rangers were unable to build much of a cushion throughout the first 18 minutes, and entered halftime with a small 32-29 lead.
Though Forest Lake had beaten Coon Rapids by five points back in December, head coach Dan Cremisino still had his reasons to worry. The first time these two met, the Cardinals’ Boris Brnic poured in 22, and he had a pair of teammates reach double figures.
“I was concerned about how fast Coon Rapids was, and the athletes they put on the floor to start the game,” Cremisino admitted. “I was most concerned about their shooter, Brnic, hitting threes against our zone.”
The 6’4” senior would only go for nine points last weekend, but the Cardinals had Ben Baker pick up the slack and finish with 20 points.
Coon Rapids had just three players score 44 of its points, and after hanging with the Rangers in the first half, the tired Cardinals faded after the break.
“I was hoping we could slow them down with our zone and it worked pretty well, as we kept them at 12 points below their average,” Cremisino said.
Like most successful games this season, Cremisino turned to a balanced attack and a deep bench, with Brad Kopp (19 points) and Zach Riedeman (16 points) making up 50 percent of the offense. Ryan Brown added 11 points, while Ty Cremisino turned in seven.
“We made numerous big shots in the game and had some key stops,” coach Cremisino shared. “Kopp, Brown and Riedeman all scored well, and Ty and Mike Person had great games off the bench.”
Round 1 win
The playoffs started on March 11, with the Rangers hosting a Duluth East squad they had already thumped by 21 in mid-February. Forest Lake was well aware of the dangerous Dyami Starks, who fired in 31 points in that earlier matchup. But with the sophomore from East only getting 15 last Tuesday, the eighth-seeded Greyhounds (11-16) didn’t even have a shooter’s chance of winning on the road.
“In this game I worried about if we would be patient on offense and if Starks would go off,” coach Cremisino said. “We did a good job with both of those concerns. We held Starks to about half his season average and moved the ball pretty well on offense.”
(Photo by TLC Digital Images)
THAT PERSONAL TOUCH: In Forest Lake’s victory over Coon Rapids, senior Mike Person was one of many Rangers who turned in a solid performance and put the team in position to qualify for the state tournament.
Forest Lake employed an aggressive 1-3-1 defense in order to harass Starks as well as shut down a young team that has three freshman, three sophomores and three juniors.
Lentsch, Kopp and Ty Cremisino took turns running the top of the zone defense that not only limited open looks for Duluth East, but also created turnovers that gave the Rangers multiple fastbreak opportunities.
“Last time we played against them it worked, so we figured it would work again,” Lentsch said about the 1-3-1.
In the second half he felt Forest Lake (19-9) found more of a flow on offense and that built their confidence.
“We respected them but we knew we could beat ‘em,” he said. “We didn’t want to be totally confident because Starks is really good.”
In the early stages of the second half, the Rangers built a 12-point lead and gave the appearance they would hold the ball and let the clock tick away.
But their defense continued to overwhelm the Greyhounds, and then Forest Lake’s offense really began to click. Riedeman, Brandon Phelps, Kopp, Ty Cremisino and John Young got to the hoop, and suddenly the lead ballooned to a 47-27 advantage, with more than eight minutes remaining in the game.
“We took good shots and hit the shots we took,” coach Cremisino said.
In what seems to make a winning formula, the Rangers shot better than 50 percent from the field and exactly 80 percent from the free throw line.
Revealing the effectiveness of the zone defense, the three young men who hustled across the point — Kopp (17), Lentsch (14) and Ty Cremisino (13) — were the leading scorers for Forest Lake.
A win over Cambridge (18-10) on Wednesday would send the Rangers to the state tournament for the first time since 1999. The tourney runs from March 26-29 at the Target Center.
Box Score
Coon Rapids 29 28 — 57
Forest Lake 32 37 — 58
Coon Rapids — Baker 20, Sather 4, Brnic 9, Hampton 13, Townsend 11.
Forest Lake — Lentsch 6, Brown 11, Phelps 6, Cremisino 7, Kopp 19, Riedeman 16, Person 4.
Fouled out - Baker.
Free throws — FL 13-21, CR 6-11. Three-pointers — FL 6, CR 5.
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