JCU men lose in season opener

Women’s team rolls behind Heffington

It was a rough season opener for the John Carroll men’s basketball team on Jan. 22 as the host Blue Streaks lost to Heidelberg, 69-53.

The Student Princes went to the locker room with a 32-27 halftime lead, and then ran away with the Ohio Athletic Conference win in the second half.

JCU coach Pete Moran was fearful of his young team coming out slow because of a limited preseason, which began Jan. 4. Those fears came to fruition.

“That’s what happens when guys aren’t in shape,” said Moran in a postgame Zoom conference. “It’s not their fault. We’ve had a limited time. We’ve progressed but there’s a lot of new faces out there and it’s going to take some time to start playing John Carroll basketball.”

The Blue Streaks (0-1) shot just 35.7 percent from the field (20 of 56) and were worse from 3-point range (6 of 29 for 20.7 percent). They also had 22 turnovers.

Heidelberg (1-0) scored the first 10 points of the second half to take a 4227 lead with 15 minutes remaining in the game, and that was too much for JCU to overcome.

Without an offseason conditioning program because of the novel coronavirus, Moran had big concerns about minutes for his players during the first few weekends of this 12-game OAC season. Just two players — Eric Hanna and Hugh Brown — logged more than 20 minutes. Nine others played between 10 and 19 minutes.

“I’m extremely happy with the effort the guys gave,” said Moran. “That doesn’t show by the score. I thought we did a good job monitoring (minutes). We’ll get there, and we’ll find a way. We’re a good basketball team but we’re just not there yet.”

Hanna led JCU with 11 points on 4 of 10 shooting and made three 3-pointers. Mason Trubisky (Mentor) had eight points, two 3-pointers and three rebounds.

It was an off-night for JCU’s top returning player Jackson Sartain, who averaged more than 16 points a season ago. He had seven points and was 1 of 8 from the field.

Alex Arellano scored 17 points to lead Heidelberg.

JCU travels to Heidelberg on Jan. 23.

JCU women roll

Behind Mentor grad Nicole Heffington, the JCU women’s team easily defeated host Heidelberg, 80-45, in Lake Catholic grad Beth Andrews’ coaching debut. Heffington scored 16 points on 8 of 12 shooting, grabbed eight rebounds, had three assists and three steals. Also scoring in double figures for the Blue Streaks were Abby Adler (14), Gabrielle Gevaudan (14) and Kaelyn Underwood (12).

The teams meet again on Jan. 23 at JCU.