Game Notes: (MBK) Elmhurst College @ North Central College (1/27/18)

Final Score
NCC 87, Elmhurst 74

Game Summary
Getting a shot at a quick Revenge Game, the Cardinals (14-5, 7-3) played pretty even with the Blue Jays (11-8, 4-6) for the first few minutes, overtaking an early 7-5 Elmhurst lead with a 9-2 run to grab control. The Blue Jays were able to keep it close, cutting the lead to one at one point, but a 9-1 Cardinal run extended the lead once again. North Central led by as many as 13, but thanks in part to a flagrant foul on Connor Raridon, Elmhurst was able to cut it to 10 by the break at 40-30. The Blue Jays came out of the locker room pretty strong, keeping the margin around that 10 point gap, though the Cardinals used a 9-0 run that included a Matt Cappelletti dunk to push the lead as high as 18. But like the prior matchup a week ago, the Blue Jays refused to go away and started hitting some outside shots, trimming the lead back down to eight, but that was as close as Elmhurst would get.

Key Stats

• Connor Raridon (NCC): 2-7 FG (1-1 3PT), 10-15 FT; 15 pts, 7 reb (2 off), 12 ast, 1 blk, 3 stl. Connor's had some subpar shooting nights this season, but he made up for it by getting to the line often in this one, while also doing a fabulous job of distributing the ball. His 12 dimes tied for the second most in a game in program history, while also breaking a pair of marks: the single season mark of 127, and the all time mark of 273, both held by Adam Teising.
• NCC: Six players in double figures. It was hard to pick just one more Cardinal to go alongside Connor, who was one of the six. Alex Sorenson did his usual thing (17 points, 12 rebounds), Erwin Henry led all scorers with 18 points on an efficient 6-10 shooting night, Matt Cappelletti added a monster 14 point, seven rebound, four block night, and Mike Pollack and Aiden Chang added 11 and 10 points, respectively. Normally for the Cardinals it's been one guy really going off to help give them their wins, but this was a very balanced attack with everyone getting involved.
• Jake Rhode (ELM): 5-11 FG (2-6 3PT), 6-6 FT; 18 pts, 5 reb, 3 ast, 3 stl. There were a few guys I could have gone with here for Elmhurst, but the freshman guard really impressed in this one. He hit a couple shots late in the second half to help keep Elmhurst in it, and he made his presence known on the other end of the floor with three steals. He'll be someone to watch next year when the Blue Jays will be really good again.

CCIW Scoreboard Watch

• CAR 81 (11-7, 6-3), @ AUG 78 (15-4, 7-3)
• @ IWU 87 (16-3, 9-1), NPU 47 (4-14, 1-9)
• @ MIL 94 (9-10, 2-8), WHE 75 (13-6, 6-4)
• Bye: CRL (6-12, 2-7)

Final Thoughts

This was a big win for North Central after the prior Saturday's loss to this same Elmhurst team. The Blue Jays did what they do again, hitting some long range shots to stay in the contest, but the Cardinals had too much firepower and in the second half made the Jays pay for some of their mistakes. It was a fitting end, as the Cardinals were able to hold the ball to run out the clock, giving me a chance to announce that Connor had broken both the single season and career assists records. The scary part: dude still has two more years of eligibility left. His one downside to this game was the flagrant foul he was whistled for late in the first half (which personally I thought was ticky-tack, though I can see why they called it). The problem was that they gave the wrong guy the free throws for it (Derek Dotlich took the shots, but Justin Fox was fouled on the play). The Cardinal bench protested, and the officials consulted with us at the table to see if we saw who was fouled, but it happened behind the play so we didn't. In the second half, one official came to the table and admitted his mistake, which I give him credit for.

Big picture wise, this weekend went about as perfectly for the Cardinals as you could ask it to. Other than Illinois Wesleyan winning, the other major contenders for the top of the league all lost, with Carthage leapfrogging Wheaton for fourth place in the conference. NCC remains in third, but is now in a tie with Augustana for second place just two games out of first place. The Wheaton loss was a shocker, especially given the margin. Both our official scorer and Clark, our SID, gave comparable shocked reactions to my showing them the scores in progress. It's still a five, maybe six, team race for the four tournament spots depending on how you feel about these Blue Jays (my take: they're a year away, but can still play spoiler this season).

The Cardinals have a tough one ahead, as they head north of the border to take on Carthage on Wednesday. Their regular season matchup there last year saw the Cardinals blow a late lead and lose in overtime, though they followed that up with a buzzer beater in the CCIW semifinal before knocking off Augie up there to win the tournament and get an invite to the NCAA Tournament. It will be a tough game against a Red Men team that has wins against Illinois Wesleyan and now Augustana this season. They'll be back home on Saturday for Senior Night against North Park.