I'm going to shoot straight, Oak Grove won to make it three one sided games in under 24 hours. I sure do know how to pick em...
As the fourth quarter wound down I started thinking about the phrase "good loss." It's a part of sports parlance that really doesn't make sense but people use to feel better about something. They find moral victories in the way that a game goes down. There's no such thing as a good loss. Losing is terrible. Should never be accepted.
BUT there are odd times when a loss may not be as bad as others. Losing a championship game is a horse of a different color from a game such as the one played today between Oak Grove & Hillcrest Lutheran. They play each other annually, alternating between Fargo & Fergus Falls but that's about where it ends. In terms of schedule and all that, it's the least important game for both teams. So when the refs missed calls and the Comets had a hard time hitting shots, especially in the first half for both, the damage that it does is minimized.
I'd like to give credit to Oak Grove. I'm sure the Hillcrest players would admit to being at least somewhat frustrated by the Grover defense but I won't go so far as to give defensive credit for layups and 3 - 5 foot shots hitting the rim but not going down. They seemed discombobulated by the shot clock out of the gate and it took a while for any sort of a rhythm to come into play. All the while Oak Grove knew how to navigate the peculiarly soft rims and managed to build a lead. 26 of their 49 points came from Tyrell Rodriguez (11) & Noah Swenson (15) with another nine from Wyatt Pierce to combine for more points together than Hillcrest managed as a team. The Comets were lead by Gabriel Preston with 12 but having that be 40% of a team's offense won't ever cut it.
But like I said, the game has the least importance that it could. So losing now could be a well timed opportunity from which to learn.
That's hypothetical though. What isn't is that Oak Grove took care of business & may be rounding into shape at the right time for the Class B stretch run.
Player of the Game
Noah Swenson
Photo of the Game
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