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St. Monica basketball snaps La Salle’s four-game winning streak
Education Feb 10, 2015
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The St. Monica boy’s basketball team (13-13, 6-3 league) stumped the La Salle High School Lancers (13-12, 5-3 league) in their second meeting of the season on Monday, Feb. 9th after defeating the Lancers 57-47
The Mariners snapped the Lancer’s four-game winning streak as they played a tighter defense and kept the Lancers out of the paint and forced them to take the majority of their shots around the 3-point arc.
“They had trouble with our three-two defense and our one-three-one,” said St. Monica head coach Miguel Villegas reflecting on their 53-51 win over the Lancers last month. “They couldn’t figure it out and they got frustrated, shooting 3-pointers and it worked out for us.”
La Salle started the game off strong with a 16-10 lead at the end of the first quarter. The Lancers did their job on defense to grab rebounds and turnovers, but what hurt them throughout the second quarter and the rest of the game was their shots. La Salle had ample shot opportunities that ended too short or too long, turning the ball over and gifting St. Monica points off the fast breaks.
“In the fourth quarter, we shot one-for-seven at the three and only made two shots inside, and we made one and missed one,” said La Salle head coach Ernest Baskerville. “You can’t win games when you’re jacking up threes and shooting poorly at the free-throw line.”
As the Lancers tried to fix their poor shooting attempts for the night, the Mariners capitalized, and stretched their lead as much as 13 for the night on multiple occasions. La Salle attempted a late rally toward the end to cut the lead to eight, but poor shooting again lead to easy points for St. Monica.
“You take care of the basketball, make your free throws, and make your layups, you’re definitely going to win, and I think that’s we did tonight,” said Villegas. “We’re a 13-13 team you do not want to see in the first round of the playoffs because we are finally healthy.”
Article and Photos by Vincent Nguyen
