Hyperflight 64, Dunk 63

I don’t know what happened in the NRF Draft this fall, but is it just me or does Hyperflight always seem play with only six guys? Regardless, after a Three-Point Championship for Lou Miguel a week ago, I had a feeling that this was going to be a good week for Hyperflight to pick up their first W.

Playing at a frenetic pace that didn’t seem to bode well for Dunk, Hyperflight was led by Niko Klansek – a man who had been dying for a breakout game all season and it just so happened to come in Week 14. With two nice buckets early pushing the lead to 9-4 after five minutes, you could tell that it was going to be Dirk’s night.

It was sloppy play with lots of misses on both ends though. Playing their first game without Jay Corbin and Matt Donohue after the big trade, was there a curse of the Bambino Baby Barkley? With about three and a half minutes left in the first half, Hyperflight had pushed their lead to 23-13 even though it seemed Will Blunt was possessed. In his obituary it would read Will Blunt is a B.A.D. man standing for boards all-day.

But Dunk wasn’t going to push over that easy. Battling back behind boards and buckets from Blunt and Bobbito Garcia (wow, alliteration!), Kool Bob Love gave Dunk a 27-25 lead after a deep three with under one minute to go in the first half. At the half, they still trailed though 29-27.

One of the reasons Dunk got off to such a slow start though was the fact that Bang Takenouchi didn’t get the start. When he came out in the second half playing with the first unit it made all the difference. But with 20 minutes to go, the game came down to two different ideologies: Blunt (27 points, 21 rebounds) refusing to lose and Klansek (28 points, 12 rebounds, 3 blocks) yearning to win.

But with 10 minutes to play and a 49-44 lead, Will Dubose doing his best Leon Powe impression decided that he wanted part of the action with a ridiculous pin block on Klansek by the baseline. Coming back with it, the following play Bobby Jones (12 points) SHOOK Garcia (14 points, 3 assists, 3 steals) so much so that one of the refs came over to me in the stands and said, “You gotta put that one in the recap!” Crossover of the year, perhaps? More to come later…

The rest of the game was back-and-forth. Dirk shakin’ on the baseline, Bob for two, Lou for three – it was unclear who was going to dig in when it really counted. But at the end of the game, it was just Klansek’s night. Feeding him in the post and just going to work, time and time again, he was too much for Dunk to handle.

Final score: Hyperflight wins, 64-63.

	1	2		T
Hyperflight	29	35	-	64
Dunk	27	36	-	63

Box Scores

---

---