Photo Gallery: Park Center vs. Eden Prairie
It began with defense. Eden Prairie allowed baskets on the Pirates' first two offensive possessions, then kept them from making a basket for 13 minutes.
"What our guys have done a great job of is following the scouting reports," said sEden Prairie coach David Flom. "They know the tendencies, and they are often in the right spot because of it. We also have good enough athletes, and good length, so we can defend in multiple ways."
The Eagles did not allow No. 7-4A Park Center, to score a single point until Detavius Frierson sank a free throw nearly eight minutes after that second basket.
"We couldn't let Josh Brown get off, so we stalked him all over the court to take away his 3-point shooting," Dobbs said. "And we know how good Dain Dainja is, so we just tried to limit him inside. We tried to sag off some guys, depending on whether they could shoot or not. And we did a great job of that."
Meanwhile the Eagles offense erupted: Most impressive was the 3-point shooting display by Dobbs and fellow senior Connor Christensen. Both made 4-of-5 3-pointers in the first half as the Eagles connected on 9-of-14 shots from behind the arc in that period (64.3 percent).
"I think our pace of play is hard for teams to keep up with," Flom said. "And Drake Dobbs is so good at getting to the rim and finding guys in space, he's really tough to guard. But we can score in a lot of ways for sure."
But Eden Prairie also was successful driving to the basket, breaking down defenders on the dribble, running the break off misses — in short, just about everything it tried in the first half.
"With our offense, we have free movement and shared the ball pretty well," Dobbs said. "It's pretty hard to guard when you have five guys who can shoot the ball."
The result was 20 straight points by Eden Prairie after those two early Park Center buckets. The Eagles led by as many as 29 points in the first half and cruised throughout, never leading by less than 22 points before the Pirates scored the game's final 10 points to account for the final margin.
Dobbs was one of four players to finish in double figures for the Eagles: Christensen and Austin Andrews each finished with 19, while John Henry added 12.
Dainja scored 22 points to lead Park Center (10-4, 4-1), while Frierson finished with 15 and Brown added 12.
Eden Prairie was not perfect on Saturday. But the Eagles sure came close.
"There's always something to improve upon," Flom said. "In the second half they started burying us too deep in the post, so that's something we can work to address. And I thought we got a little sloppy at the end. But I'm pretty happy with what I saw today."