GAME OF THE NIGHT!!!
Team Stallions 80 – Sonic Boom 74
One game away from the Championship game, and once again Team Stallions start out sluggish! A dangerous proposition going against the high octane group in Team Sonic Boom. Even without their leading scorer in Will Chiang, Sonic Boom has a natural chemistry that is rarely seen in leagues like this!
As The Stallions put-putted out of the gate, Sonic Boom’s Seiji Suzuki and Frank Liu came out scorching the net! With Ian Pierre-Louis cleaning the glass for rebounds, Frank and Seiji were going bananas! The combined for 23 1st half points, but Connor Rockandel was crucial in creating another player the Stallions had to account for! Unfortunately he ran into foul trouble in a few crucial spots during the game.
With a few forced turnovers and some easy buckets Team Stallions finally caught some fire! The total team energy helped wake op their sleep walking 1st half style. The added boost, fresh from his self imposed hiatus, Nebo “Neb” Aleksic added the outside punch the Stallions needed to assert their dominance!
While Roger and Neb continued to put pressure on Sonic Boom offensively, Luis Ayala, Brian “Hosty” Host, and Darryl Lardizabal were all over Sonic Boom on defense! The Stallions complete a few cruical possesstion inside of the last 2 minutes of the game to make it a two possession game. The Stallion’s defense forced Sonic Boom into a rushed follow away jumpshot and a missed point blank layup near the end of the game! The also had a chance to foul the worst free throw shooter on the Stallions team, chose to double team one player, which led to the ball being swung around to their best free throw shooter in Neb! After missing a free throw earlier, he nailed the two that put the game out of reach.
While the Stallions move on to the title game vs the winner of Team YM/Team Nike Vancouver, Sonic Boom had a great season, and a highlight of the night……
Team YM 73 – Nike Vancouver 65
A great matchup in the making! Both teams came into this game as high octane, high energy athletes! On paper, it looked like Team Nike had the advantage, but I never count out Team YM! The only team in the league that presses full court for the majority of the game, not to mention traps and jumping in the passing lanes for weak passes.
With Nike’s Matt Anza, Choli Epondulan, Joe Tozzi, and Anthony “Lebron James” Lao (heard that from a guy in the crowd during the game), it looked like they were well on their way to matching up against the Stallions in the title game. Before we could put that in writing, YM made a case for deserving to be in that title game!
YM’s JP #0 had a game high 32 points, and was scoring from all over the place along with having 2 blocked shots! Jack #7 had a good game too for YM with 22 points! The usual suspects for Nike had good games too, but they were out dueled and out hustled in the end by YM! In my opinion this is a mild upset. I’ve seen YM play all season, and they definitely deserve to be a high seed in the playoffs. I am not that surprised that they made it to the title game vs Team Stallions.
