What happens when two of the most physical basketball teams in the region meet? You’ll get a tremendously scrappy game just like Kirkwood Community College and John Wood were against each other on Nov. 29.
Going into the game Kirkwood was ranked 13th and were home in Johnson Hall Hosting ranked 17th John Wood. At the start of the game John Wood had a ton of more height then the eagles with four out of five of their starters being taller than the Eagles. The sight was set, the arena was absolutely packed, and the crowd was stunningly loud for this matchup.
From the very beginning this game was very physical and very fast paced with both teams focusing on pushing the tempo of their offenses. With five minutes into the first half being 8-8 and just over halfway through the first being tied at 16-16 with Kirkwood’s coach Tim Sandquist calling a timeout.
Immediately after the timeout it was clear that Kirkwood put an emphasis on the rebounding where Kirkwood would force a lot of missed shots and go straight away to 16-3 run led by a scoring output of Trajan San and a ton of assist by Jacob Runyan where it would be 32-19 and force John Wood to call a timeout. Before being 34-25 at the half.
Coming out of the halftime Kirkwood looked really good with both of the schools exchanging lots of made shots and being a physical game with one of the highlights of the second half being Ayouba Berthe turning the ball over and chasing down his opponent the length of the court blocking the opponent from behind. Right then and there the crowd was erupting and the noise was deafening.
Kirkwood would end up winning 70-52 where John Wood was just never able to overcome the deficit at half with leading contributions from Traijan San putting up 11 points 4 rebounds and 2 assists and Zach Erwin 8 points assists 9 rebounds and 1 assist.
Kirkwood moves on to play DMACC before going back home to play Iowa Lakes on Dec. 13. and going over to Illinois Valley on Dec. 16.
Categories: Basketball, Sports
