Park of Cottage Grove 76 Irondale 36: Five Things To Know

<p>Park of Cottage Grove took on SEC conference opponent Irondale and controlled the contest from start to finish.  Here are the five things to know.</p> <p><strong>One.  The Interior</strong>.   Irondale has four or five guards/wings that routinely have attacked teams and scored on teams in balanced ways.  Not last night.  With 6’9 [player_tooltip player_id="958715" first="Pharrel" last="Payne"] in the way flanked by 6’6 active four man [player_tooltip player_id="1143877" first="Jamari" last="Walker"], there was no space to get to the rim.  And with the basket attack finishes taken out of the equation, Irondale had to rely solely on jumpers and they didn’t make nearly enough.  In fact the Knights made only three threes.  In addition, the 38-21 rebounding advantage Park had meant that Irondale was limited to one opportunity per possession.  </p> <p><strong>Two.  The Park D</strong>.  It wasn’t just the interior defense. Brady Perryman is a fabulous defender for Park.  One of the better defenders I’ve seen this year actually.  Brady, Walker, Brayden Fick, and [player_tooltip player_id="958678" first="Evan" last="Bearth"] did a great job of keeping Irondale in front of them.  Irondale has four double figure scorers and they are [player_tooltip player_id="1213072" first="Obinna" last="Izuora"], DJ Anthony, Drake Gomez, and Jordan Tieh.  All four of these players are guards and they shot 3 of 10, 1 of 6, 0 for 8, and 2 of 8 from the field respectively.  That’s 6 of 32 from the field total from the top four Irondale scorers.  Obinna scored all of his points in the first half.  Anthony didn’t score a field goal all night.  Tieh had one make and one rebound for the game total.  When a team like Park has the defenders to do that to an Irondale team that came into the contest 14-7, that’s impressive. </p> <p><strong>Three. Evan’s Swing.</strong> Any hope Irondale had of making a comeback was instantly flushed when [player_tooltip player_id="958678" first="Evan" last="Bearth"] made the three early in the first half.  Bearth caught a rhythm of seven straight made field goals including three triples early in the second half.  A 17 point lead was quickly pushed into the 30s and all that was left for drama was when Park would get the game to running time.  Evan hit three threes and scored his 19 points on 7 of 13 shooting. </p> <p><strong>Four.  Jamari’s Highlights</strong>.  Walker went baseline early for a score on a strong post move.  The lift is always there but he noticed the space was there against the smaller Irondale team.  So a few minutes later he dunked off a drop step.  Then Jamari had a dunk in transition.  Having met the previous challenges Walker then decided to try a 360 dunk in a game in transition and he put that down as well.   Walker had 15 points on 7 of 9 shooting with seven boards.  I think what really grabbed my attention was Walker’s ability to move laterally as a 6’6 forward.  The potential is there for Walker to be an outstanding defender if what we saw several times last night is his consistent defensive showing.  </p> <p><strong>Five.  Phranchise Dominance</strong>. They call [player_tooltip player_id="958715" first="Pharrel" last="Payne"] the Phranchise and last night the reasons were very clear.  Irondale couldn’t get near the rim for shots because Payne was in the way.  He blocked three shots and altered twice that many.  Payne’s 14 rebounds were mostly on the defensive end and his quick outlet passing was a key reason Walker had the open floor attempts he did.  His outlets helped Bearth hit quick transition threes.  It allowed [player_tooltip player_id="1150577" first="David" last="Ola-Kazeem"] to score two of his four field goals in transition.  Offensively Payne scored 21 points on 7 of 10 field goal attempts and 7 of 9 foul shots.  Pharrel’s approach is, dunk everything.  Hard.  And if dunk isn’t a possibility, jump over everybody to get the angle for the short lay-in or jumper.  It was a dominant double-double and an early seat.  </p>