2014 Class AA Boys Championship Game Features Roosevelt and Lincoln

Tonight's coverage on ESPN 99.1 begins at 6:00MT/7:00CT with Washington vs. RC Stevens in the 3rd/4th place game. The championship game between Roosevelt and Lincoln will start at approximately 8:00MT/9:00CT. Jerry Palleschi will have the call.

Tonight's Class AA Boys Championship Game will be an all Sioux Falls affair in Rapid City. The Roosevelt Rough Riders (3rd seed) will take on the Lincoln Patriots (8th seed).

Sioux Falls Lincoln

The Lincoln Patriots have played two games, and ten quarters. During the first round of the tournament, the Pats took the top seeded Huron Tigers to overtime and defeated them 62-57. In the second round, Lincoln had a meeting with in-city rival Sioux Falls Washington. The Warriors and Patriots exchanged buckets throughout the entire game and was tied at the end of regulation. It was Lincoln in the overtime period outscoring Washington 13-3 to get the win 67-57.

Now the 8th seeded Patriots will jump into the championship game for the first time since 2009. Kaleb Johnson scored 27 points against Huron to lead the way, and in yesterday's contest the Patriots were helped by Tate Lindsay's 17 points, and Calvin Krause's 16.

Sioux Falls Roosevelt

You could sense last night that the Rough Riders wanted to get a win back against Rapid City Stevens. They certainly received that.

Last night the Riders scored a majority of their points from inside the paint in route to a 61-42 win over the hometown Raiders. Chris Phillips and Jason Spicer gave the majority of those inside points as both scored 16. Colton Kooima added 12, while Josh Kirkwold had seven.

Where Roosevelt shined last night was on defense. Steven Schaefer did get his 20 points, however there was not much production outside of him. Roosevelt took away Sam McCloud, who only scored four points, and Matthew Wilson. With the great defensive effort, the Rough Riders have punched their ticket to the championship game since 2000.

SF Roosevelt vs. SF Lincoln

These two teams have met twice during the regular season with Roosevelt winning both games. In the first match-up back on February 4th, Roosevelt outscored Lincoln by five points in both the second and third quarter to help them jump on top of the Patriots. Kooima had 14 in the game, and Phillips scored 11. For Lincoln in that game, it was all Addison Park. Park had half of the total points for the Patriots as they fell 58-50.

The last time Lincoln lost a game (currently a five game winning streak) was to Roosevelt on February 27th in the regular season finale. Lincoln took the lead early on Roosevelt, but it was a 25-17 outburst by the Rough Riders in the fourth that gave them a 64-59 victory.

If those two games were any indication of what we are going to get tonight, we are all in for a good game.

For the Patriots, they will need to make sure that Roosevelt doesn't get on the runs that hindered them in the previous two contest. Also, Lincoln will need to have a more distributed point spread against the Riders. While the Patriots are dangerous even with one player leading the way, if they find a way to get all of their starters points they will be very difficult for Roosevelt to overcome.

Roosevelt will get their shots and will hit them, that isn't the worry. Roosevelt's championship hopes will be held with defense. Expecting to see Lincoln try to work the post game with Malik Dunn and Park, leaving Spicer and Kirkwold to defend the two down low. Spicer and Kirkwold are more than able to do so, but they need to make sure that Park does not score 25 again this time around. If Roosevelt is able to take a couple of the Patriots completely out of the game, they will be in a good position to capture a state title.

State Title Notes

• This will be the first time ever that two Sioux Falls schools have matched up in the championship game.
• The two schools also met for the Class 11AAA Football Championship this past fall.
• Roosevelt is 1-0 all time in the state championship game. They defeated RC Central 56-55 in 2000.
• Lincoln's first appearance was back in 1968, a 69-57 loss to Brookings
• Lincoln's first title was in 1970, winning 58-51 over Yankton
• Lincoln is 4-4 all time in championship games. Winning in 1970, 1976, 1995, and 2009.