The men’s varsity basketball team was ended its playoff run on February 19 with a 70-30 loss at Mount St. Joseph High School in the MIAA A Conference Semifinals.
The Gaels were lead by senior forward Ryley Beaumont’s 21 points and timely rebounding, while senior point guard Eric Atkins added 15 points of his own. Mount St. Joe used stifling defense from Atkins, junior guard David Windsor, and sophomore guard Gavin Stephenson to shut down junior guards Malcolm McMillan and Ronald Scott. McMillan was held to nine points, while Scott had just eight. No Patriot player reached double figures.
This loss came one night after the Patriots traveled to Loyola and defeated the Dons 46-42 in a tightly contested quarterfinals matchup.
Against the Gaels, the Patriots got off to a slow start, trailing 10-2 at the end of the first quarter and 27-11 at the end of the second quarter. In the second half, the Gaels found their rhythm, scoring 43 points, with ten different players scoring.
In the first half, McMillan and Scott were each held to three points. Both players, who have accounted for most of the Patriots’ offense this season, were unable to find their rhythms. Scott, a reliable three-point shooter, made only two of his attempts, while McMillan could not get past the interior defense of Beaumont and junior forward Trey Clinton.
The Patriots were unable to find anyone in the supporting cast to step up, as the third leading scorer was freshman Rodney Elliott with four points, followed by sophomore Van Rolle with three points, while junior forwards Zach Frink and Ouesseni Ouegraogo and freshman forward Mike Owona each had two points.
“[Mount St. Joe] is just very good,” said head coach Tony Martin. “They make it very difficult to score because of the big bodies inside.”
Martin described the Mount St. Joe playing style as “disciplined” and credited the Gaels’ experience to their success.
The Patriots were coming off of a very tough game against Loyola in which the score was tied 9-9 after the first quarter, 25-25 at halftime, and 31-31 after the third quarter before the Patriots pulled away on timely shooting from Scott and McMillan in the fourth quarter. Scott recorded 21 points while McMillan accounted for 17 points, giving the two guards 38 of the team’s 46 points.
“At the end of the day, if there was a third scorer [on the Patriots], they would have surfaced,” said Martin. Martin thinks that junior forward Jarred Jones, who missed most of the season due to injury, could have easily fulfilled the “third scorer” roll to take pressure off of McMillan and Scott.
The Loyola game was the first game since a January 31 game at Calvert Hall in which the Patriots lost 59-49 in overtime. The extended break because of the snow came at a time when, according to Martin, the team was playing their best of the year. Martin said the 17-day layoff between games “affected us without question” and that the Patriots were the only “A” Conference team not to receive sufficient practice time during the break.
The Patriots found themselves in foul trouble during both games. At one point in the second half of the Loyola game, the Patriots had six team fouls compared with the Dons’ one. This allowed Loyola to foul down the stretch and extend the game. There were also offensive fouls called on McMillan, Scott, and junior forward KJ Hockaday early in the fourth quarter, which sent Loyola players to the free throw line.
“If you’re good enough, you can overcome any officiating concerns,” Martin said. “When you’re playing a team like Loyola, it’s not an issue. When you play someone far superior like Mount St. Joe, you need the obvious calls. When it doesn’t go your way, it compounds an already difficult task.”
The key momentum shift in the Loyola game came with just under a minute left in the fourth quarter, the Patriots holding a 40-37 lead. Scott was called for a five-second violation on an inbounds play, giving the Dons possession. Loyola senior guard Mike Fitzpatrick drove to the rim on the following possession where he was rejected by Owona. Scott scooped up the loose ball and threw it ahead to McMillan for a dunk in the open court and a 42-37 lead. While Loyola answered quickly with a three-pointer which cut the lead back to 42-40, the Dons weren’t able to get back to a tie game.
Martin credited tough defense on Fitzpatrick, Loyola’s second-leading scorer who was held to two points in the game, and containment on senior Matt Mathias, who scored 22 points, as the keys to victory.
In the Mount St. Joe matchup, Hockaday, Frink, and Owona were all called for offensive fouls for illegal screens in the first half. McMillan and Scott were also called for charging fouls during these sequences.
In addition, the Mount St. Joe’s defense was nearly flawless. Clinton provided a shot-blocking presence inside to deny anyone that made it past the perimeter defense of Atkins and Stephenson. Atkins, a Notre Dame-bound point guard, played an extremely smart game, finding Beaumont open underneath the basket multiple times while also catalyzing the fast break for the Gaels.
Next season, the Patriots return its core of McMillan and Scott. Although the team was 9-18 (4-6 MIAA A Conference) during the 2009-2010 season, the team kept games close, losing 11 games by only 10 points or less.
Martin called the conclusion to the 2009-2010 season “a far cry from where we started.” The team returns 13 players that Martin hopes will be healthy for an entire season in the 2010-2011 season.
Note: Mount St. Joseph advanced to the MIAA A Conference Championship Game on February 21 at UMBC, where the Gaels lost 63-56 to St. Frances, the No. 2 seed in the tournament. Beaumont and Miller scored 17 points for the Gaels while Atkins added 15.
Daniel Gallen can be reached for comment at [email protected]