Badgers hope to rebound in hoops
Brock hits the hardwood Friday in St. Catharines hoping to return to the win column in men’s and women’s basketball.
It was a winless weekend for the Badgers in Ottawa, as the men dropped an 86-46 decision to the Carleton Rams followed by a 94-91 loss to the Ottawa Gee-Gees. On the women’s side, it was 72-43 in favour of Carleton and 93-53 for Ottawa.
“We had some costly turnovers, four in our game plan defensively that made it hard for us to get back into rhythm in key moments in the third quarter that came back to us,” head coach Madhav Trivedi said after the game against the Gee-Gees.
Brock’s third loss in a row dropped the team’s record to 5-4.
All five starters scored in double digits for the Badgers: Daniel Cayer, with 19 points; Johneil Simpson, 16; Cassidy Ryan, Kascius Small Martin, 15 each; Tyler Brown, 11.
Simpson netted a team-high 14 points in the loss at Carleton.
Head coach Mike Rao’s women’s team is also seeking to end a three-game losing slide.
Only one Badger – Melissa Tatti, with a game-high 22 points — scored in double digits in the loss to Carleton.
“We needed to bring better effort, the intensity in the second half picked up a bit and we tried to do a better job committing to inside the paint,” Rao said. “The lack of consistent scoring from everyone derailed much of our effort.”
Elise Euale, Tatti paced Brock
in points against Ottawa with 12 and 10, respectively.
Queen’s — men, 5-3 ; women, 6-2 — provides the opposition Friday when the Badgers host a doubleheader at Bob Davis Gymnasium. Brock closes out the first half against the York Lions, also
the game, punt returns of 60 yards in the second quarter and 70 yards in the third for touchdowns only served to tilt the field more in Lorne Park’s favour.
“Two of three touchdowns came on punt returns, that surprised our team,” Patriots head coach Rick Oreskovich said after a disappointing 21-3 loss. “I don’t think momentum turned in our favour at any time in the game.”
He suggested the importance of momentum can’t be overstated.
“Momentum is critical for the mental part of the game,” the veteran coach added. “It’s more important than people think.”
A loss that ended the season for Saint Paul’s senior team dropping its record to 8-3, including 4-1 in the playoffs, was a combination of Lorne Park playing well and a less-than-peak performance from Patriots.
“Lorne Park is very solid, aggressive, well-coached, competitive, athletic,” Oreskovich said. “Overall, we did not play our best game, and we had to to beat that team.
“I don’t think we had our best game.”
Saint Paul, which upset the defending regional champion Notre Dame Fighting Irish on the road to take the Niagara Catholic Athletic Association championship, had trouble executing its game plan on both sides of the ball against Lorne Park.
“We weren’t making blocks as well as we should have, we weren’t maintaining blocks to give our back room to run,” the veteran coach said.
Saint Paul knew what to expect before taking the field in the first of four high school bowl games at the home of the Grey Cup finalist Ottawa Redblacks. Lorne Park beat the Patriots in exhibition action at the start of the season.
“We knew what we were up against, we knew they were a good team,” Oreskovich said.
Quarterback Devon SchillerCleveland, eight completions in 19 attempts for 80 passing yards; Carlos Calderon Barahora, five carries for 28 yards; Matthew Paul, two receptions for 42 yards; led Saint Paul on offence.
William Schmahl had an interception, and Zachary Lundy, Marley McCray, 5.5 and five tackles, respectively, for the Patriots defence.