It's one thing to play with a shutdown defense, and then there’s what Burnsville has been up to lately.

The Blaze has rung in 2011 by limiting its first two opponents of the new year to fewer than 40 points.

“It’s something they take some pride in,” said head coach Matt Eppen, who took over for longtime coach Doug Boe this season. “They understand the importance to it. A lot of it boils down to their willingness to work together. It’s a necessity. One thing I’ll say about Burnsville kids is they’ve always been hard workers. As I’ve watched teams last few years, that’s a credit to Coach Boe.”

Eppen has devoted much of this season’s training to defense, and the strong capabilities of players like C.J. Smith and Cam Jones has been evident.

After defeating Bloomington Kennedy 36-34 on Tuesday, Burnsville (6-2) turned around and beat Eastview 44-39 at home Thursday night. The Lightning (6-2) had won four in a row by averaging nearly 67 points per game. Against the Blaze, only three Eastview players made a basket: Joey King (15 points), Shane McSparron (14) and Frank Veldman (10).

That’s a nice feat, even if it wasn’t necessarily the game plan.

“I was kind of surprised by that when I saw the scorebook at the end,” Eppen said. “One thing that’s important to point out is that there was not a ton of possessions. That had a lot to do with it. Every possession counts.”

Still …
“I’m sure they were really trying to get ball into their hands,” Eppen said with a laugh. “Those are three great players.”

Minnesota Transitions – a Class 1A charter school in Minneapolis that features high-scoring Kyle Noreen – is the only team to date to put more than 60 points on the Blaze. The Wolves beat Burnsville 62-52 in the opening round of the Best Buy Classic on Dec. 28.

Other than that, it’s been a defensive gem of a season.

“For all of us, we’re trying to establish some consistency in all areas,” Eppen said. “We still have some things defensively – definitely – that we have to work on. The biggest thing is we haven’t exactly scored a ton of points.”

An assistant with St. Olaf College in Northfield the past two seasons, Eppen said bringing his systems to Burnsville’s boys’ team has taken some time to develop. But things are coming along.

“It’s harder to be able to implement your offensive stuff over defensive stuff,” he said. “We need to understand how to be patient with some of the offensive struggles that we’ve had. But in our conference, it’s such a grind that we hope we’re able to keep playing good defense every night and continue to get better on that offensive end.”