Hibbing Tournament of Saturday, March 10, 2012

The roster was a little light, as the 630 am departure prevented a few kids from making it, but the 7 that did headed out bright and early Saturday to Hibbing, MN to take part in the 10th annual Hibbing 6th gr boys basketball tournament. Some slept, some were too excited and stayed up the whole trip. After a quick pit stop in Grand Rapids, we arrived at the gym with 20 mins to spare.

Game #1 was against Moose Lake/Willow River, a team we have never faced before. It was a close game throughout the first half, but we held the lead at the half 21-20. In the 2nd half we made some adjustments on the defensive end and were able to capitilize on a technical foul for them having 6 people on the floor and hit 1 free throw, and then a big 3-pointer on the inbounds! We called a timeout up 7 with 2 mins left and called a 3 man weave offense to dribble out the clock, as we knew they only had 3 team fouls. We caught them off guard and were able to run out 1:24 before being fouled! Some awesome dribbling skills were shown that had the crowd "oohing and aweing" and some coaches asking what we teach to get those results. Final score 47-36!

Game #2 was against Barnum, another team we've never faced. Barnum had lost in their season to the team we beat in the first game, but they came out playing hard and kept pace with us early, but couldn't contain Jaden Wood, who hit five 3-pointers in the 1st half to lead us to a 21-18 lead! The second half was a devfensive battle and shots weren't falling for either team, in the end the final score was 34-25 Red Lake!

Game #3 was against Northwoods, a team made up of a few northland towns, including Nett Lake! They had a good mix of size and speed, and we came out on fire, but they managed to come back on some nice offense that used alot of back door cuts for easy buckets to tie it 21-21 at the half. We were unable to hit the big 3's and missed some huge layups in the second half and came up short in the semi finals, 52-37!

Game #4 was the 3rd place game against the hometown team Hibbing 1, which was their stronger team. We hit some big shots early, but couldn't keep pace with them and trailed 15-31 at the half. We battled back to 7 with the full court press, but ran out gas and ended up dropping this game 36-55 to take 4th place!

Overall it was a good day, we lacked the height to match up with the bigger teams, there was a 6' 2" kid from Esko that we didn't have to play, but the boys played hard and with sportsmanship. A team we beat had some sore losers, but it was addressed with the coach and handled well without incident. Our boys again recieved alot of compliments from teams/fans that beat us and that we beat. I owe a huge thanks to the boys for waking up early on a Saturday and playing some awesome basketball, also to the RL Donations Committee for helping make this happen, the tournament is one of the bigger ones around, and we are thankful to get the invite, 16 total teams were there. Next up for this team is a tournment in Cass Lake this Saturday, March 17, which will feature a 4&5th grade division and 6th grade.