Edge will need to quell Storm to gain their first win
St. John’s loses to Moncton and Halifax during season-opening weekend; faces Island squad on New Year’s Eve
Teams change from year to year, so we can’t read too much into this, but you have to think Steve Marcus and his St. John’s Edge are looking forward to rolling into Charlottetown, P.E.I.. for a New Year’s Eve game against the Island Storm following a tough start to the 2019-20 NBL Canada season over the weekend.
Playing against a pair of teams that have traditionally played the Edge tough in the past, St. John’s lost its seasonopener 114-106 in overtime to the Magic in Moncton, N.B., on Friday night, and followed up with a 112-108 setback to the Halifax Hurricanes Sunday afternoon in Nova Scotia.
Overall, in 11 meetings — regular season, playoffs and exhibition — since the beginning of the 2018-19 season, the Magic are 10-1 against the Edge.
And St. John’s has yet to win a game at Scotiabank Centre in Halifax, going 0-2 in their inaugural 2017-18 season and 0-2 last year.
Overall, the Edge were 1-4 against the Hurricanes last season.
The Edge play Game 3 of their tough six-game seasonopening road trip Tuesday against the Storm. Granted, last season was last season, but St. John’s was 5-1 in its six meetings against the Charlottetownbased squad last season.
The Storm are 1-1 having lost their season-opener 120-112 to the Magic last Thursday.
Jeff Morrison, the Edge’s newly-hired assistant to head coach Marcus, served as an assistant coach with the Storm for three years.
On Sunday, the Hurricanes got off to a quick start, taking a 16-point lead (35-19) on the Edge after one quarter (12 minutes).
“They’d gotten beaten pretty bad Saturday night (124-99 by the Storm in Charlottetown), so we knew they’d be coming at us pretty tough,” said Marcus. “I don’t know if it was the early tip-off (2:30 p.m. NT start) or what, but it took us a little while to wake up.
“And it didn’t help that they made some tough shots down the stretch.”
The Hurricanes led 59-48 at halftime, but the Edge shook off the cobwebs in the third quarter, outscoring their hosts 40-21 for an 88-80 lead after three quarters.
Halifax, however, sealed the deal by outscoring St. John’s 3220 in the fourth.
Tyrone Watson, who played for Halifax last season, led the Edge with 21 points, one more than Junior Cadougan. Cane Broom netted 13, while Montay Brandon and Murphy Burnatowski both had 12.
The Edge played without starter Karrington Ward, who rolled his ankle Friday in Moncton.
“If this was the playoffs, he would have played,” Marcus said, “but we elected to take a precautionary route.”
Ryan Richardson led the team with 17 points against Moncton. Fellow starters Ward (16), Mike Edwards (16) and Cadougan (13) also scored in double figures, while Burnatowski had 15 points off the bench.
Following the New Year’s Eve game in Charlottetown., the Edge play next Thursday, Saturday and Sunday in Moncton, Charlottetown and Halifax before returning to St. John’s for their home-opener Tuesday, Jan. 7 against the KW Titans. Those teams meet again the following night at Mile One Centre.