MSC tops St. Patrick
PROVIDENCE – Henry Coleman didn’t label his Mount St. Charles’ rebounding effort horrible during the first half of his Division III-East clash with host St. Patrick’s School on Saturday afternoon.
Then again, he didn’t say it wasn’t.
During a late timeout before intermission, the diminutive but fiery head coach preached heavier concentration on MSC’s defensive boards, emphasizing the prevention of second-chance points.
“One of the things I’ve always liked about this team is you guys have an edge,” Coleman told them just before entering the second half trailing by two. “Now I want you all to use that edge here. Play a full, hard, aggressive 16 minutes of basketball, and let’s see what happens.”
The Mounties followed their mentor’s advice, though it took longer than any of the visitors or their fans at the pristine UCAP Center gymnasium expected. MSC squandered a six-point lead with 2:23 left in regulation, allowing the Padres to knot it at the buzzer, but later utilized an early flurry in four-minute extra session to burn the Padres, 55-51.
“The kids did a really good job of taking what we told them at halftime about the rebounding issue, processing that information and then applying it; we did a much better job on the boards in the second half,” Coleman noted after his squad improved to 12-6 overall and 11-5 in league action. “We were too sloppy at the start; there were too many turnovers and we allowed too many second, third shots.
“All things considered, we were lucky to be only down two at the break; they killed us on the offensive glass,” he added. “We did a much better job as time went on, which allowed us a transition game and some easy buckets.
“We had a couple of breakdowns at the end of regulation, but we kept our focus the final four minutes and secured the victory.”
Junior guard Thomas Burke paced the Mount with 16 points (three 3-pointers), while classmate Ben Ellis mustered 12 points; senior captain Danny Johnson nine points and seven rebounds; junior Jordan Perry seven points, eight boards and four thefts; and senior captain/point guard Isaiah Lee five points, seven assists and three steals.
For St. Patrick’s, (5-11 league), sophomore tri-captain Keith Wilson planted a game-high 21, while fellow tri-captain and senior Isaac Parkes notched 11 with a minimum of 18 boards. Other key contributors for the Padres were junior Victor Rodriguez (nine points, all via trey); classmate Vince Tilus (eight points); and sophomore Ryan Joseph (two).
Just 32 ticks into the second half, a foul delivered to Ellis from beyond the arc resulted in three foul shots, and he dropped them all to give MSC its second lead of the game at 20-19. Wilson’s 3-pointers less than a minute later gave it back to the Padres at 22-20, though the visitors assembled a stunning 9-0 run over the next 3:48 to gain a 29-22 cushion, that after Lee’s layup at the 10:48 mark.
Thanks to a Burke three with 8:39 left in regulation, Coleman’s crew found itself with a 34-36 advantage and in control.
Or was it?
Not quite two minutes later, Rodriguez drained a trey to slice it to 36-33, yet the Mount immediately responded with a consecutive Ellis bombs as it gave itself its heftiest lead of the contest at 42-33.
That last one came with 5:34 remaining. For MSC, all was well – until …
Rodriguez landed another three, Parkes powered up for a bucket and then hit a 15-footer to slice it to 42-40.
The Mount scored the next four to make it 46-40 with 2:23 left, though the Padres kept pressuring, eventually knotting it at 46up when Tilus turned a steal into a lay-in with 30.1 remaining in regulation.
At the start of overtime, Lee netted two freebies, Burke a southpaw layup and Tristan Cox and Burke a foul shot each to snag the 52-46 lead with 37.3 ticks left.
Rodriguez actually rattled home a distant trey with 3.8 on the scoreboard clock to knife it to 53-51, though Johnson canned the final two from the charity stripe to ice it.
“Sometimes winning isn’t pretty, but I’m still proud of the way our team battled, didn’t yield,” Coleman said. “Good teams do that, and we did here.”