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Dickinson’s Moody lights up Cobblers

Playmaker guard opens up game red hot



Dickinson's 7-0 Jordan Meidinger (44) defends Central's 5-8 Dylan Hay (3) as he passes the ball back out to Cameron Hall (24).

Dickinson’s 7-0 Jordan Meidinger (44) defends Central’s 5-8 Dylan Hay (3) as he passes the ball back out to Cameron Hall (24).

RAPID CITY — “Coming in we knew the Moody kid was really good,” Rapid City Central Boys Head Coach T.J. Hay said. “The problem we created was the first three shots of the game he knocked down were uncontested, and it really got him on a roll.”

Aanen Moody’s roll ended 45 points later, with a 72-50 victory over a Cobbler team last Friday afternoon that did not play all that badly.

Central came into the game 1-3, having dropped their first three hotly contested games at the Gillette, Wyoming tournament, before coming back home to trip up Douglas, 71-62. The Dickinson loss was the last game until a December 12 match-up at home against Sturgis.

 

 

Few fans knew about 6-3 Moody, and the player eyes focused on initially was 7-0 senior Jordan Meidinger. Central drew first blood with a bucket from Camden Talley, a 6-2 junior. Dickinson retaliated by getting the ball into the paint for Meidinger, who plopped it in to make it 2-2. Central’s Tanner Berg, a 5-10 senior, then rebounded his own missed shot, missed the up-and-in, and Meidinger cleared the glass, fired the ball out to Moody who raced up court and nailed his first threepointer.

Cameron Hall, a 6-3 junior, tried to retaliate for the Cobblers with a long range bomb of his own, but Meidinger again snatched the rebound, Moody zipped back up court, hit his second three, and it was 8-2. Two possessions later an offensive rebound was fed back out to him, and without hesitation, Moody fired up his third three, 11-2.

At that point Hay called a Cobbler time out, 4:51 remaining, first quarter.

Moody responded to the time out by firing yet another three from the top of the key, 13-2. Central has a fiery little 5-8 point guard, Dylan Hay, and after Moody finally missed a three, he canned his own three to make it, 11-5. Then Hay got a steal, zig-zagged through traffic, and made it 13-7. Dickinson went back to basic post up basketball, got the ball to Meidinger under the basket, but he blew the shot. After rebounding his miss, he made it 15-7.

Moody then decided to play nice, and settle for only a two-point bucket, 17-7. That prompted a time out with 1:44 to play, opening quarter. Once back on the floor, Kyle Elder, a 6-0 junior, buried a three from the corner for Central to make it 17-10.

After Moody free throws made it 19-10, Cobbler Trey Eberlein, a 6-3 junior, had the prettiest play of the afternoon, cleverly twisting his body through heavy lane traffic, drawing his team closer at 19-12, and that ended the first quarter.

“We are giving up too many offensive rebounds,” Dickinson Head Coach Dan Glasser told his charges as they retook the floor. “Let’s lock ‘em up on defense.”

Central took their time setting up a shot, and Nehemiah Baustian, a 6-4 junior just beat the buzzer with a banked in three to make it 19-15. At that point it seemed anybody’s ball game. It was the first of three run backs at Dickinson the Cobblers would make in the second quarter.

“We made several runs and we just couldn’t get over the hump,” Coach Hay said. “We got it down to 4 at one point, and had two consecutive turnovers that led directly to points on the other end.”

The first turnover put Cameron Jorda, a 5-10 senior on the line for Dickinson. He made it 21-15. Moody then took the second turnover the length of court for an uncontested lay-up, 23-15.

The Cobblers did not roll over. Ira Murphy, a 6-4 senior, got inside and made it 23-17. Hay then fired a pass inside to Baustian, and Meidinger brushed it clean away, but was called for goal tending, 23-19. Meidinger then was fouled after an offensive rebound, hit both free throws, to get it to 25-19. For the last time, Central brought it back to within 4, when Mason McBride, a 6-4 junior, scored on a spinning lay-up to make it 25-21. A couple minutes later Dickinson had the lead up to ten, 31-21, and then Moody struck again, hitting a three, 37-23, a near three, 39-23, and then after Meidinger blocked a shot, Moody scored on an off balance lay up to make it 41-23, and force a Cobbler time out with 5:59 remaining in the half.

Moody explained that off balance shot after the game, crediting it to watching Dirk Nowitzki: “Point your shooting foot toward the basket, the shot always goes that way.”

Hay, McBride and Baustian had some nice buckets as the half wound down, but Moody continued to make plays and chalk up points, and after he hit another three, to make it 50-35, Dickinson, Coach Glasser saw something he didn’t like and called a time out with 1:28 remaining in the half.

“We’re not matched up,” he told his Midgets. “Just talk, we gotta talk. Now, go match up!”

Once back on the court, Moody drove the lane to make it 52-35. Baustian drained a three and the Cobblers went into the halftime locker room down 53-38.

The second half would not get better. It belonged to Moody.

“The second half (Moody) hit some really tough shots,” Coach Hay said. “But I told the kids, sometimes you do everything you are supposed to do but a good player will still hit shots.”

There were other influences that prevented a Cobbler comeback: “We also gave up too many offensive rebounds and turned the ball over too much, and it wasn’t to the 7-footer; their guards really crashed the offensive glass and we didn’t box out well.”

Still, there were lessons learned in the 72-50 loss.

“The biggest thing we can take away from the game is we have to get better,” Coach Hay said. “Plain and simple. We have to take what we talk about in practice, or even what we talk about at time outs and at halftime, and get it done on the floor.”

When asked if Moody had any weakness, Glasser said, “Two years ago when he was a sophomore it was on the defensive end, he used to hurt us there, but he has improved so much.”

Dickinson used to play Glendive at this point in the season, but “they took at tournament, and we needed to pick up one more game.”

The Midgets only loss came up at Minot, by six points: “We were up by 13 with nine minutes left, but we had 29 turnovers in that game, Minot put a lot of pressure on us.”

Statistically totals were surprisingly even given their final score. But two stats stood out, Dickinson out-rebounded 39-30, and out-scored the Cobblers from the free throw line by 12 points.

Moody led all scorers with 45 points. He had 6 rebounds. Meidinger scored only 6 points, but had 9 rebounds. Dylan Hay had 20 points for the Cobblers, and Baustian added 10.

(Contact James Giago Davies at skindiesel@msn.com)


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