RallyNorth.net

Tue, Jan 22, 2008 07:00 PM @ St. John's

Team	1	2	3	4	Final
B.C. High	25	13	18	19	75
St. John's	9	19	11	17	56

Turnovers plague Prep in loss to B.C. High

Wednesday, January, 23 By Greg Zagarella
Staff writer

Turnovers. St. John's Prep boys basketball head coach Dan Letarte cringed when he heard the word.

"We had too many. Twenty five," Letarte said as he flipped through his scorebook. "That is unacceptable against a great team like B.C. High."

The 75-56 victory for B.C. High over his team was as much evidence as anyone would need. The loss drops St. John's Prep to .500 on the season at 5-5.

The problems started as soon as the game did. In the opening two minutes, St. John's made three turnovers against a B.C. High offense that didn't need the help. The giveaways continued to pile up and as a result Letarte's team was looking at a 16-point deficit by the end of the first quarter.

"We knew B.C. High was going to come out flying at the beginning and we had to match them," Brendon Felder said after the contest. "We wanted to make a few adjustments | push the ball forward and start running up and down the floor."

The Prep was able to jump out on a 17-4 run for the first 5:26 of the second quarter and cut the B.C. High lead to three at 29-26. Ryan O'Connell led the charge, hitting for 10 of his 13 points during that stretch.

Soon after, however, the St. John's team began to play sluggish again.

Possessions that were ending in quality shots and hoops during the Eagles' run began turning into wasted opportunities because of missed connections and poor decisions. The home crowd, rowdy and spirited in the early going, had been silenced by the poor play of its team, and the 9-2 B.C. High run that followed to close out the half left the Eagles staring at a seemingly insurmountable deficit.

The B.C. High run was set up in large part by guard Mike Albanese and 6-8 senior forward, Jake O'Brien. Albanese finished the game with 13 points, while O'Brien led all scorers with 25.

"O'Brien brought us some leadership. He, along with Brian Mahoney (eight points), are a couple of seniors who play hard every game because they know this is their last year," B.C. High coach Bill Loughnane said.

As bad as the first half was, the bulk of the St. John's turnovers came in the third quarter.

Sensing that a 10-point halftime advantage (38-28) wouldn't be enough, Loughnane made some defensive adjustments at intermission.

"We regrouped and stepped it up on defense after halftime," said Loughnane. "We're a team that when the defense plays well, the offense gets easier."

Combine those two elements with bad fouls and poor shots and the Prep had all but played its way out of the game. "It was a struggle. B.C. High is a good team and we made it impossible to beat them with all the turnovers we had," Felder said.

In by far his best quarter of play, Felder scored 10 of his team-leading 17 points in the final period of play.

Felder sensed his team needed someone to step up and take control and he wanted to fill that role.

"He had a great fourth quarter. He played really hard," Letarte said of Felder. "Brendon tried to push the pace and take the game into his own hands."

Unfortunately, St. John's Prep could not get it going. They were incapable of avoiding costly turnovers and went down by as much as 21 (73-52) at one point in the fourth quarter.

In addition to the strong play of Felder and O'Connell, Patrick Connaughton, a freshman guard, netted nine points for the Prep and seven-foot center Michael Hall, tallied seven points and 12 boards. But every member of St. John's Prep walked off the court knowing that there is definitely a need for improvement.

"We've got a lot to work on for our next game. Perimeter defense and cutting down on all those turnovers will be the focus of this team," assured Letarte. "The team needs to make better decisions with the ball. It will be hard to win games if we keep turning the ball over like this."