Mike's Weekly Upperclassmen Standouts

This week I attended three standalone games, Christian Academy of Louisville @ Louisville Ballard, Campbell County @ Covington Holy Cross and Cincinnati Princeton Vs Lakota West at Cintas Center. In this article I'll break down the upperclassmen standouts from these games.    Honored for recently going over the 1,000 point mark for his career pregame, Arlinghaus was an efficient shooter from all over the court in an impressive win for Holy Cross in a 9th Vs 10th region showdown. Arlinghaus made shots off the catch, hit a couple one to two dribble pull-ups and scored in transition as a slasher. Arlinghaus has the potential to go off on any given night, shown by his 39 point performance against Montgomery County and 33 point performance Vs Scott County. In the Montgomery County game, Arlinghaus connected on eight 3-pointers. Impressive senior guard for one of the top under the radar teams in all of Kentucky, getting a quality win over Campbell County despite missing two starters certainly caught my eye.     Another player who was honored for scoring his 1,000th career point this season before the game, Rominger did the dirty work for Holy Cross while also getting on the score sheet efficiently to help his team get a signature win. Rominger did a nice job of scoring in the paint with craft, using his body to shield shot blockers from contesting his layup attempts. Making two of the craziest shots I've seen all season, Rominger had a double-clutch mid-range shot and a crazy reverse layup on the baseline. Impressed with the resiliency that Holy Cross showed on Wednesday night, securing a crucial win over a quality opponent despite being short-handed.     Tyson came out the gates with a purpose, knocking down two nasty pull-up 3-pointers and throwing down a breakaway dunk to help Lakota West jump out to a 18-0 lead. Tyson ended with a game-high 19 points and had a clutch and-1 layup with about two minutes to play to break a 47-47 tie. Lakota West also ran some nice sets for Tyson to score off backdoor cuts and they always look to advance the basketball up the court off steals and defensive rebounds. Impressive win by Lakota West who are close to clinching the conference title after this win.     A grown man performance by Gill under the bright lights, I liked the fact that he didn't seem to force anything in the half-court. Gill hit a baseline jumper and a wing 3-pointer and then started getting closer to the rim as the game wore on. You could tell the physicality and aggressiveness that Princeton played with was affecting a shorthanded Lakota West squad that had players out due to injury, flu, foul trouble and cramping in the second half. That allowed Gill to post up some smaller defenders forced into the game and finish layups at the rim. Impressive performance by Gill to help his team try and climb out of a massive early deficit but just couldn't finish it at the end.     After falling behind to open the game, Santiago Lugo finally hit a 3-pointer off a BLOB set to get Princeton on the scoreboard with a minute to play in the first quarter. Knocking down five 3-pointers throughout the game, none were bigger than the 3-pointer he hit off a DHO to briefly tie the game at 50 with just over a minute left on the clock. I liked the effort Santiago Lugo played with but wish he could impact the game in more ways than just making shots. He's one of the elite shooters in all of Ohio and had no trouble adjusting to shooting in a college arena backdrop.

This week I attended three standalone games, Christian Academy of Louisville @ Louisville Ballard, Campbell County @ Covington Holy Cross and Cincinnati Princeton Vs Lakota West at Cintas Center. In this article I'll break down the upperclassmen standouts from these games.