Junior point guard Anthony Giadyu drained a career high 27 points and Park rolled to its second win of the week, taking down visiting Irondale 76-67 Thursday night.
“I feel we pushed the …
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Junior point guard Anthony Giadyu drained a career high 27 points and Park rolled to its second win of the week, taking down visiting Irondale 76-67 Thursday night.
“I feel we pushed the pace well, and I feel like we penetrated their zone a little bit better than last game,” said Giadyu. “We got our shooters open and hit our shots.”
Park stayed third in the Suburban East Conference with the win, going to 8-4 in the conference and 10-8 on the season. Irondale’s challenging season continued as the team fell to 0-12 in the SEC and 2-18 overall.
“He (Giadyu) started the game hot and had about 14 in the first half,” said Park assistant coach Charlie Koch. “Ended with 27, a career high for him. He was really our catalyst. He finished at the hoop whenever we needed him to, pushing the pave when we needed it and I mean he played incredible defense. He executed everything we asked.”
Given the relative closeness of the game, and the starters stellar play in the last two games, Park coaches made the call to leave the starters in until the final gun.
“We really challenged the varsity guys after a bad one last Friday (a 76-38 loss at Cretin-Derham Hall),” said Koch. “And they stepped up two nights this week so we kind of wanted to reward them and let them finish that one out. We really challenged those first five and those three guys off the bench. And they executed everything we asked so I just figured we’d reward them tonight. And give them that last kind of walk off.
“They handled some adversity,” Koch continued. “Irondale, props to them, made a really good run at the start of the half. Our guys played through it, they listened, executed everything we asked and against that 2-3 zone they did a great job of getting it to the middle and then picking their spots well on their drives.”
Park led 38-31 at the half and it was still a tight game in the final minutes.
As has been the habit lately, the Wolfpack spread the ball around on offense. In addition to Giadyu’s 27 points, Tayvion Stewart had 15, AJ Kennedy 13, Dom Batts 11 and Kaeden Callais 6.
“Tayvion Stewart went 9-for-10 at the free-throw line and we needed every one of those,” said Koch.
“I think we just played fast and were able to handle their zone when they threw it out on us and were able to move the ball to get good looks,” said Batts. “I think we did a lot of things well.”
The Wolfpack have won five of their last six games as the team heads into the final third of the season.
Park 73, Stillwater 51
Four days after losing to Cretin-Derham Hall by 38, the Park Wolfpack pulled the yo-yo effect and dropped visiting Stillwater by 22 points, winning 73-51.
Both teams came into Tuesday’s contest with 8-8 season records, but Park established dominance early and led 37-27 at the half. The second half was mostly a repeat of the first as the Wolfpack outscored the Ponies 36-24.
Park put four players in double figures and three who just missed Tuesday. Miskir Esayas had a season high 16 points, Tayvion Stewart 13, Anthony Giadyu and Kaeden Callais 10 each, Dom Barts 9, Adrian Davis 8 and AJ Kennedy 7.
None of Stillwater’s players broke into double figures.
The Wolfpack play at Roseville (6-6, 10-8) Friday, Feb. 16, starting at 7 p.m., then travel to White Bear Lake (3-9. 3-15) on Tuesday.
