Knights look to slay another giant

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- The Sleepy Eye St. Mary's Knights will attempt try to reload their sling tonight when they meet the top-seeded team from the South Subsection, Mankato Loyola, in a 5 p.m. contest at Minnesota State-Mankato's Taylor Center for the Section 2-1A title.

For the Knights, it is a chance to knock off their fourth giant four tries, with wins over Le Center (second seed in North Subsection), Cedar Mountain/Comfrey (third seed) and Minnesota Valley Lutheran (top seed).

"We know that they have some nice players in (sophomore) Tyler Westman," said SESM coach Peter Roufs about the Crusaders' guard, averaging 17.2 points a game during the regular season. "He is a key for us to stop, and we also have to be concerned with (freshman) center Bret Brielmaier who is 6-foot-5."

Brielmaier averages just over 10 points a game. "We will have to help out on him defensively if he gets the ball down low," commented Roufs. "We know that he can by physical and has good moves in the post."

Truc Ho, the Crusaders' point guard, runs the squad and " is extremely quick, can shoot the 3-point shot and is a good penetrator."

Roufs added the the Crusaders, who finished fifth this year in the Minnesota River Conference, have a lot of role players that the Knights need to be concerned with.

"They play hard, are a good rebounding team that will try and get up and down the floor and switch defenses on us," he said/ "We need to come ready to play."

As far as size, Roufs feels that his team and Loyola both match up well.

"They have Brielmaier inside, who is bigger than anyone that we have, but other than that we match up well," Roufs said. "I tell the kids that they (Loyola) are not going to be any bigger than any team in the Tomahawk Conference. ... We see huge teams in the Tomahawk. They are not as big as a GFW or an MVL. We usually have that mismatch inside with Adam Fischer only being 6-foot."

As far as quickness, Roufs feel that his team is quick but Loyola might be a little quicker "especially with the Ho kid at the point spot. That is a concern to us; they also have a quick player off the bench in Andy McCabe, who is quick to the hole and is quick on both ends of the floor. We are going to have to move our feet; we know that they penetrate well so we are going to have people playing good position defense. Otherwise we will find ourselves in foul trouble.

"I think that us and Loyola are on the same roll right now with the wins," said Roufs. "I think that our kids, with the MVL win, are elated and are playing with confidence. But you are always concerned about a letdown after a big win. I think having three or four days to come down from that win so we will try and take advantage of the position that we are in, which is we are still the seventh seed and are playing a number-one seed.

"If we take that attitude into the game as the underdog and no one expects us to win, sometimes that allows us to relax and enters into the mental part of the game where we come out and play relaxed but hard. We try to avoid the attitude that we are just happy to be there; you can think about that later but now we have an opportunity to get to the state."

Is he more concerned about what Loyola does well or what his team does well?

"What we do well ... we are not going to put something new in. When you play 25 games, you have seen about everything you are going to see," Roufs said. "We are concerned about what are we going to do on offense or defense against Loyola. Those are things that we can control; we can't control all that they are going to do."

And that philosophy has been successful in postseason play for the Knights as they prepare tonight to load up their sling one more time as the meet yet another giant.