For the second time in the last week, Traders Point Christian Academy faced off against La Lumiere.  The second game was a much closer affair than the 70-39 thrashing that took place up in LaPorte.  This game was originally going to be at the host Traders Point gym but because of the amount of people that was expected for this game it got moved to Covenant Christian.  It was still packed to standing room only and a host of coaches like Northwestern’s Bill Carmody and Purdue assistant, Greg Gary.
Tonight, at least early on, it was sloppy and it really kept the pace of the game down and allowed Traders Point to keep a 31—27 lead at half.  LaLumiere really pushed the ball in transition but bad passes and bad luck shooting the ball nullified any advantage they had.  Traders Point played very well and took advantage of the backdoor cuts to get to the basket.  In the second half of the game it all changed.  Rapheal Davis took over and led LaLumiere up and down the court on his way to a 30 point performance.  Traders Point stuck around till about midway through the 4^th quarter but LaLumiere was just too much and the game ended the same way the first meeting did, with LaLumiere winning 65-49.
 Rapheal Davis, who missed his first four shots, was hitting jumpers and posting up on the block but the thing he did the best tonight was driving the lane.  Time after time, Davis slashed through Traders Point defense and got to the basket and playing through fouls and rewarded himself by making 10 of 14 free throws.  It was a bad matchup defensively against Davis and he exposed it time and time going 10-17 from the field.
The score is not really indicative of how the game went.  Going in to tonight, the thought was it would be another blowout but the post presence of Olah and Kostic for Traders Point made life a pain for LaLumiere.  Hanner Perea had one nice put back dunk and some key rebounds but really wasn’t a factor in the game.  Same goes for Jay Simpson, who showed of a couple very nice post moves but just wasn’t having the buckets fall tonight.
Alex Olah, Milos Kostic, and Mirslav Brzoia were a 3-headed monster for Traders Point.  Olah showed a variety of post moves and never backed down to anyone scoring 18 in the game.  Brzoia at one point had one of the craziest assists I have seen with a two-handed, no look, backwards pass over his and his defenders head right to Olah for the basket.  Mirslav Brzoia had a solid game with coaches from Ohio and Bradley in to watch.
Jalen James, the Illinois commit and recent transfer to LaLumiere, made a couple great plays in transition in the 3^rd quarter.  He was really the key that sparked LaLumiere to start taking off.  James grabbed a couple rebounds and made good decisions when pushing the ball up the court. 
All in all, the game ended how we thought it would but Traders Point definitely made a game out of it but the story was Davis.  Rapheal showed off tonight which isn’t normally how he is.  He is the guard that somehow ends up with 30 points at the end of the game and you didn’t even realize he had 10 points.  Not tonight.  Tonight he was explosive and aggressive and led his team to a great victory.

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