Five Takeaways: East Ridge blows out Mounds View
East Ridge rolled. This game was never really close. The Raptors jumped out to a double-digit lead quickly and held on the entire way to a 70-48 win. Mounds View just doesn’t have the size or athletes to match up against something like East Ridge.
The young talent at East Ridge is wild. Skilled sophomore four-star Ben Carlson shot 7-15 for 21 points and also grabbed 10 rebounds. Brothers Courtney Brown (junior) and Kendall Brown (freshman) had 15 and 12 points, respectively. The Browns are long and bouncy with high potential. These three represent sure-fire Division I talent in the Raptors’ 2021, 2020 and 2019 classes, something that bodes extremely well for the future. Nebraska-Omaha had an assistant there watching Courtney, and they chatted after the game. An underrated piece is junior guard Nick Kelly, a football kid who is a reliable ball-handler and logged 8 pts, 6 assists and 3 steals.
Mounds View has shooters. Josh Albers takes after his brother, Nate, as the next Mounds View shooter. Josh did a great job as a Mustang filling up the stat sheet, and Josh seems primed to do the same. He’s smart and decisive with his shooting and had 11 points on Friday. Beejay Blevins also had a few makes from deep, totaling 10 points.
Who is Michael Fahim? Mounds View’s Fahim is a 6-foot-6, muscular big man who did not back down from defending the rim. In the era of the “why jump?” meme, Fahim was defensively ready to step up and meet any East Ridge slasher at the hoop. His alley-oop in traffic was a crowd-pleaser! I’m guessing he’s a football prospect, because he looks like he’d be a hell of a defensive end or tight end.
ER is gearing up for a big one Tuesday. East Ridge is 12-4 on the year and has five straight (Roseville, Park, Forest Lake, White Bear Lake and now Mounds View) wins. That’s a great way to build momentum before hosting Cretin-Derham Hall on Tuesday. CDH is the No. 1-ranked team in Class AAAA at 14-1 overall, and it already beat East Ridge earlier this year. The match-ups will be really interesting, with young stud Carlson battling Gopher signee Daniel Oturu and Courtney Brown taking on uncommitted D1 prospect Sy Chatman.