Ladue Dispatch Normandy and Melville. Tune up for Clayton.

This is a condensed break down of Ladue's two games on Monday and Tuesday.

Ladue played two games in two nights because they finally got a make up date with Normandy, who they were supposed to play a long time ago in December.

The Rams came out and faced guarded Gerrard Fuller, Normandy's best player, who is their point guard and shooting guard. Connor Spirtas, the one face guarding him, did a near perfect job. He barley allowed him to get a sniff of the ball and when Fuller did get some room he fired long three-point attempts that were well off the mark.

During that time the Rams started slow on offense as Normandy set up a 3-2 zone. It was working pretty well, but since the Rams defense was so stunning, a 16-7 lead seemed pretty comfortable after one quarter of play. The Rams could've had a bigger lead had they not missed a couple of bunnies and maybe could've gotten a couple of calls down low.

Back on defense, the Rams forced Normandy to go inside and be creative, which caused the Vikings to turn the ball over time and time again. Some were forced, others were unforced.  It was almost like it was a 4 on 4 game with a Rams defender face guarding Fuller. Ladue created fast break opportunities and took advantage of most of them.

The Rams struggled shooting the ball, except Cornell Johnston, who hit all three of his three-point field goals. Finally Jeremy Loftin broke the drought with a three-pointer, which sparked another late rally from the Rams. Ladue also finally converted on their inside shots thanks to Andrew Maddock and Jon Collins. However Collins have to leave the game for awhile after two consecutive charges, but the damage was done and the Rams had 30-16 lead going into halftime.

Ladue still held firm on defense as Normandy only scored once in five minutes, but they eventually picked it up and Fuller finally got his first points of the game. Johnston, Maddock, and Loftin carried the load on offense for the Rams as well. One particularly interesting play occurred when Johnston inbounded the ball to Maddock then bounced passed the ball right back to Johnston. He raced to the basket. Beat two Vikings and finger rolled the ball in for a breathtaking finish. All in all, it was just a simple 1-2 by Johnston and Maddock.

Ladue continued to dominate with the score now 43-26. The score got up to 21 points in the 4th quarter in which the Rams unloaded their bench. However Normandy didn't and went on a late run. Fuller finally found his rhythm and started hitting three's. The score got down to 52-44 with under a minute to play, but Johnston was put back in calmed everything down with a nice assist to 6'4" freshman River Rhodes, who laid the ball up and in for his first points of the season. The assist was better than Rhodes' name. The Rams won 54-44.

Johnston led the way with 13 points, 10 assists, and 3 steals. Andrew Maddock had 11 points with a massive amount of 20 rebounds. That is a career high. He also had a 4 blocks.

The next night Ladue met Melville, who was 9-11 going into the game. The Rams started this game out probably the best they had started any game all season. They made Melville run and made shots. Ladue got on a 15-0 run and ended the quarter with a 19-5 lead. Connor Spirtas had 8 points to start out the game and ended with 12 for the game. He made all of his shots too.

Ladue went a little slower, but still played great defense by forcing turnovers and guarding well to force bad shots. Jon Collins then wowed the crowd with a dunk, which is the second of the year for the Rams and he got the other one as well against Hazelwood Central.

The score was 33-10 at halftime and everybody who played had scored. The game then was played evenly in the second half mostly because the game was already over before halftime.

River Rhodes got into the game with four minutes to go and was on the end of a slick pick and roll set up by Johnston, but couldn't convert. Mark Rogers hit a three-pointer to end his drought on the home stand. He now has over 100 points on the season and he becomes the seventh player on the squad to have as many points. Last year only six players tallied 100 points. Currently the next in line is Nahom Assefa with 77 points, but may not make it to 100 because he will be out for at least one week because of a back problem. Continuing on Rogers, he was seen making his three-pointer on KMOV and KSDK, Channel Four News and News Channel Five respectively. Both news outlets arrived around the same time in the 4th quarter when their wasn't much action.

Ladue soundly won 60-35 and will renew their rivalry with Clayton on Friday.