SVSM brings end to Brush’s winning streak

Winning streaks come to an end, and Brush found that out when the Arcs took on St. Vincent-St. Mary on Feb. 13.

After winning nine straight games, the Arcs weren’t able to get the job done against the Irish with the final score being 73-49 in a nonconference matchup. Brush falls to 12-4, while the Irish move to 17-2.

Despite coming out of halftime and trimming the lead to nine points, Brush couldn’t keep up with the versatility of St. Vincent-St. Mary. Brush has an offense focused on driving into the lane and getting the ball inside to Elmore James or Antwone Woolfolk.

But St. Vincent-St. Mary was able to limit that and make Brush work from beyond the arc for most of the night.

With every miss, the Irish pushed the pace down the court. This changed the game plan for Brush coach Chet Mason.

“We wanted to try and control the pace of the game,” said Mason. “They’re a really high-scoring team and you want to get them out of their comfort zone. If we could have kept the score closer, we would have a chance. We were able to do that for a majority of the game. But in the end they were able to take us out of the rhythm we usually have.”

Both Mason and the Arcs’ Elmore James were able to find some things to work on with the postseason looming.

“We need to work on our levels,” said Mason. “We played one of the best teams in the state, and some of the mistakes we made tonight, we can’t afford to make in the tournament. Teams like this capitalize on mistakes like turnovers, and we had a bunch tonight. That’s where the game was won today and we can’t let things like that happen this late in the season.”

Said James: “If a team forces us to change offensively, we need to learn to adapt to things like that. We have to be able to rally together more. If we aren’t getting calls that we think we should, we need to be able to come together and be able to fight through it. There were times where we were lagging behind after a non-call, and we can’t let things like that happen in the postseason.”

James finished with 20 points while Woolfolk had 12.

On the other side of the court, the Irish had three players finish in double figures as Harris Sencire and Branham Malaki had 18 each and Ramar Pryor finished with 10. Coach Dru Joyce noted multiple players turning out big performances prior to the postseason starting up.

“It’s big because if you can get three or four players scoring, you challenge the other team with trying to stop all of them,” said Joyce. “Tonight we played a good team in Brush, but we focus on controlling and containing. We did a great job controlling and containing what they could do on offense.”

St. Vincent St. Mary will take the court again on Feb. 16 when they take on Lutheran East. Brush will look to get back to its winning ways when the Arcs take on South on Feb. 17 as they return to Western Reserve Conference play.