In a battle of the two best defensive teams in the league, The Desert Storm traveled to face #1 USA Elite. This was the 4th time this season Arizona has gone on the road to face a #1 team. Previously, in Division 3, these two teams battled it out in a tightly contested Championship series where Arizona prevailed 2-1. USA Elite won the regular season matchup that season at home, and both teams won their home games in the championship series. So Arizona was trying to be the first time in five tries to get a win on the road.
Erin Andrews was at the game, here is her account:
Wow! What a treat! In just my
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.chicagonow... second game with the team, and first time traveling with the team, I was treated to quite a show!
Arizona started off strong in this one building an early 5 point lead. They scored on each of their first 4 possessions, and I was really wondering what all the hub-ub was about with USA Elites Defense. Then the change was noticeable! The court seemed to get smaller, and the home team players seemed to get bigger. The Desert Storm players seemed to be smothered at each turn.
The point lead quickly turned into a 6 point defecit, and Arizona even had a chance to steal the lead at the end of the 1st, but USA lead by 1 at the first break. The second quarter saw Elite take total control of the game, and Arizona looked confused, and were clearly outhustled as the home team got offensive rebound after offensive rebound. They scored with 2 seconds left in the half giving them their biggest lead at 9 going into halftime.
Whatever Coach Mahody said at halftime worked, because Arizona came out with a vengance, and totally dominated the 3rd, especially the first half of the 3rd, where in the blink of an eye Arizona completely erased the defecit. USA Elite started get back in it and maintained a 2 point lead heading into the 4th quarter, even though Arizona won the 3rd 21-14.
USA Elite came out in the 4th determined to take control of this game, and send the vistitors home with a loss. Elite was seemingly everwhere; Arizona did not take one single good shot in the first 7 minutes of the quarter. USA Elite wasn't doing much better, but the 3 baskets they made in the first 4 minutes of the quarter was enough to stretch the lead, and put pressure back on Arizona, and seemingly put this game out of reach. Arizona finall scored on a FT just over 5 minutes into the 4th. With 6:40 left in the game, USA Elite scored to match their biggest lead of the game (9 points) 65-56. The game felt truly out of reach.
The teams traded bad shot attempts for over nearly 2 minutes before Arizona added another FT, but a miss on the second attempt, an offensive rebound by Zekic, and the putback gave Arizona their first basket of quarter with just over 5 minutes left. That was the beginning of quite a run where the Desert Swarm defense refused to give any room to the USA offense.
Arizona closed the game on a 13-2 run over the final 6:40 of the game, and a tightly contested missed shot the buzzer by USA's C Kawashima at the buzzer, gave Arizona the 69-67 road win!!
Arizona now moves on to face another #1 team, a home game against the Finger Rolls.