2012/2013 - Scots Sr. Girls Basketball: Scots News: St.Albert Gazette - Scots down Blues
ARMED AND DANGEROUS
St.Albert Gazette - Scots down Blues
| ARMED AND DANGEROUS Philippe Merta of the Paul Kane Blues muscles the ball to the hoop in Thursday’s 90-81 loss to the Archbishop Jordan Scots in St. Albert. Blues lose again to Showdown foes |
| By Jeff Hansen Staff Writer |
| Playing in the Showdown final was more a curse than a blessing for the Paul Kane Blues. After losing the St. Albert Optimist tournament to the Archbishop Jordan Scots to the tune of 74-58, the Blues have faded away while going winless in six Metro Edmonton league matches. "It’s a little tough right now but we seem to be holding it together against the better teams in the league. Hopefully we can keep it up and keep our momentum going against teams that we know we can beat," said Scott Poirier, a Grade 12 post, after the varsity men dropped Thursday’s 90-81 decision to the Scots at Paul Kane. The premier conference tilt went down to the wire as the teams jockeyed for the lead before the Scots pulled away. "I thought we had it," said Nick Zutz, a Grade 10 post who led all Blues in scoring with 18 points. "This is now a seven-game losing streak for us. We were doing great in provincial standings at the start of the year and now we’ve just lost it." Three of those losses were administered by the 12-1 Scots. The 4A team from Sherwood Park was undefeated in 31 games (league and six tournaments combined) before Tuesday’s 74-72 upset win by the 4-8 visiting St. Joseph Saints. "That wasn’t really one of our goals but it was a good feeling being undefeated for that long. I guess it’s better losing then than in playoffs," said Thursday’s game star, Brett Gaudreau. The Grade 11 guard riddled Paul Kane’s defence with five three-pointers and 25 points. In the first meeting since Showdown, the Scots downed the Blues 74-69 Monday. "We played better this game. In Sherwood Park we were down by three pretty much the entire game and we just couldn’t take the lead," said Zutz, who sank 12 points in the loss. In the standings the Blues are 4-9 without a home playoff date. Their last game before the quarter-finals is 4:45 p.m. Tuesday against the 7-6 Rams at St. Francis Xavier High School. "We’re going to take it Tuesday," Zutz said. "We’re starting to come around. We’re fixing our errors." The six-foot-five rookie was Paul Kane’s most dangerous player in the first half with 14 points. Slick moves underneath the basket put points on the board. During a memorable sequence of events, Zutz rejected two shots in succession and then followed the play up court and stuck in the offensive rebound. "In the first half we ran the fast break a lot. We got a lot of easy free baskets," Zutz said. "The second half was a lot slower. Our point guards were having trouble breaking the press and it took a lot longer to get the ball up the court and get shots off on time with the shot clock running down." The Scots wired four three-pointers in the first half to lead 45-39. Gaudreau and Grade 11 winger Gregg Frankson combined for 23 points. "We weren’t getting very many calls in the first half. Our shots weren’t falling for us. Our defence wasn’t that great at all. They were playing pretty good inside," Gaudreau said. In the second half Philippe Merta caught fire, sinking 14 points. The fourth basket in the opening six minutes by the Grade 11 winger tied it 51-all. Zutz hit two freethrows to put the Blues back on top 59-58 with 10:27 to go. Mark Walkingshaw converted three out of four from the charity stripe to put Paul Kane up by five. The Scots went ahead 66-65 on Frankson’s jumper. After Poirier muscled in the ball from under the hoop, Dave McLennan reeled in a pair of defensive rebounds during frantic action at both ends of the floor. Poirier’s foul shots at 5:32 made it a three-point game. McLennan, a six-foot-six Grade 11 shot blocker with a nice touch inside, and Merta cleaned up under the boards on missed shots by Gaudreau with the Blues clinging to the lead. Zutz was later fouled making a basket. His free throw was unsuccessful, but Merta converted the missed shot into a 73-66 lead. However, the wheels fell off the Blues as the Scots racked up 13 straight points before Merta cashed in an offensive rebound at 2:21 to cut the deficit to four points. "In the second half we came out really strong. It gave us a lot of confidence and then it just seem to kind of edge off. The momentum seemed to change at the end. We started making some little mistakes and they capitalized," said Poirier, 17, a valuable six-foot-three reserve who chipped in with seven points. Gaudreau, 16, sparked the point run with a pair of threes and a basket on key assist by Frankson from a Paul Kane turnover. A slew of fouls allowed the Scots’ sharpshooters to fire away. "We played tough defence in the full court. We were getting steals and getting rebounds inside. We were stopping their big players because they didn’t really have any outside shooting today," Gaudreau said. "Their inside game was really tough against us. We had a hard time getting rebounds there for a bit." Frankson’s three-pointer with 78 seconds to play sealed Paul Kane’s fate. The tournament MVP at Showdown lit up the Blues for 27 points. "We let their guys take easy shots. No. 11 [Gaudreau] made a ton of threes," said Zutz, 16, a promising rookie from the Sir George Simpson Voyageurs, last year’s St. Albert junior high school champions. |
