An epic, part II: Revenge of the Cardinals

The easy way for me to write about the Grantsburg/Luck boys game tonight would be to copy and paste the post from the first game they played, change some of the names (Jason Jensen to Brennan Olson) and the final score and I could go to bed!

I won’t do that, though.

If you care to listen to the game you can find the archive here.

This game was so highly anticipated and hyped up that it seemed that there could be no way those 10 guys on the court could live up to it.

Wrong!

Over 1000 people witnessed another gut-wrenchingly exciting game which came down to a buzzer-beating shot to win the game by one. This time it was Luck who came away with the victory 57-56 in Grantsburg. Taking that shot was who you might suspect… Brennan Olson (he’s a stud… and I say that in the most manly way possible).

Olson got off to a very slow start, in fact he didn’t score until a few minutes into the second quarter (it was a dunk where he had to knife through 3 people to get to the rim then he threw it down with two hands). He finished the first half with only four points. It looked like Grantsburg had figured him out after he went for 25 in their first meeting, but they hadn’t; Olson ended up with 22.

The boys in purple came out blazing hot hitting jumpers from everywhere, Ben Larson especially, it seemed nobody clad in purple and white could miss. Grantsburg used that sharpshooting to amass a 14 point lead at one point in the third quarter, but conservative play and cold shooting in the fourth quarter spelled doom for the Pirates.

This game also crowned Luck as the winners of the West Lakeland conference. Had Grantsburg not inexplicably lost to the Webster Tigers a couple weeks ago, there would be a two way tie for the conference crown, instead the Cardinals get it outright.

Really, there’s not a lot more to say about this game. If you were not one of the 1000+ people in attendance, you really missed out. The crowd was electric the entire night as probably 900 people witnessed the girls game (which Grantsburg won!) which started at 6:00. There was even overflow seating in the auditorium starting during the girls game. It was an incredible experience.

Casting our gaze towards the playoffs, both of these teams are projected to receive number one seeds. You can read my previous post about the bad draw that Luck is getting (and the great draw Grantsburg will be getting) if you follow this link. Brackets will be finalized on Sunday and I’ll post the as soon as I can.

The Pirates could clash with the Cardinals one more time this year if both teams win their regional. They will meet in Somerset for the Sectional semifinal. I can predict the name of my post after that game, "An epic, part III" The only uncertain thing is the victor. Here’s hoping for just one more game between these two rivals.