PEIRRE CONWELL scored 28 points, QUASHINGM SMITH-PUGH had 21, and KANTRELLE KIRK added 10, leading St. Paul Johnson to a 99-72 Twin City boys’ basketball victory over Minneapolis Southwest.
The game was hosted by the Minneapolis City Conference champion Lakers (who share the crown with Washburn).
Southwest got 20 points from senior guard DEMETRIUS CADY and 17 points each from CAM ROSS and EAMON BRODEK.
The trip to the TC game was not easy for the St. Paul champion Governors or Lakers.
Southwest tied with South and Washburn but earned the trip because the Millers had represented Minneapolis more recently. Johnson was pushed into overtime before defeating Highland Park, led by guard DION BRADLEY, 74-67.
Ironically, it was 30 years ago that the two teams met in the Twin City championship under interesting circumstances.
That year, 1983, Johnson breezed through the City Conference with a 16-0 record, dethroning four-time defending champion Central.
South had won the Minneapolis crown that season, dethroning perennial power North, but had to forfeit some games because of a player ruled ineligible. That paved the way for Southwest to go.
The game, played at Augsburg College (when the TC game was a huge event), turned out to be a different outcome. Southwest won the game 56-37.
TERRELL SUGGS, the All-Pro linebacker and defensive for the Super Bowl Champion Baltimore Ravens, even stopped through the Twin City game to check out his old school. Well, sort of. Suggs attended Johnson as a ninth grader before moving to Arizona, where he blossomed into a high school all-American in football. He went on to Arizona State and then to the Ravens, where he is now one of the top players in the NFL.
Suggs’ cousin D’MARR was also in attendance. D’MARR SUGGS was an All–State shooting guard for Johnson as a senior in 1997. He went on to play at Merritt College in Oakland, California and finished up at Idaho State.
Mitchell Palmer McDonald welcomes reader responses to mmcdonald@spokesman-recorder.com.
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