Sunday, January 30, 2000

The wins keep on coming

By Dave Feltner
Sports Editor

Saturday night, Mansfield St. Peters made the trip to Calvert High School without leading scorer Peter North.

Strike one.

That meant the Spartans' five starters had to log most of the minutes against a Calvert team that generally goes 11 deep.

Strike two.

Those two facts weighted heavily in the middle two quarters when St. Pete made just five field goals and turned the ball over 16 times.

Strike three. You're out!

Calvert took advantage of an athletic, yet undermanned, Spartan team to post its 14th victory without a loss, this one a 74-50 rout.

"(St. Pete) had a nice start to the game," Calvert coach Tony Mass said. "But after that, except for in the fourth quarter when they scored 17 points after the game was basically over, I thought, defensively, we sort of put the clamps on them. We created a lot of turnovers and got some things off those turnovers. I also think we wore them down.

"(James) Christian got tired," he said of the Spartans' guard who scored 18 points, 12 in the first half. "We really made him work to get open."

That pattern wasn't established immediately.

Christian hit four field goals and scored nine points in the first quarter to help the Spartans to a 17-15 lead at the first stop.

But then the clamps came down.

Christian hit a 3-pointer at the 4:40 mark of the second, but St. Pete did not score again until 48 seconds were left in the half.

During that stretch, Calvert's Kevin Lucius came off the bench to score six points, while Ben Brickner hit a 3-pointer and a pair of foul shots and the Senecas opened up a 32-20 lead.

"Turnovers, turnovers," St. Pete coach Pat Maurer said. "I think it was as much mental fatigue as it was physical. (Calvert) has a fine team. And you put a good team in a confined space like this, and throw in all the presses they run, and it can cause you a lot of trouble."

The Spartans got to within 32-24 at halftime, but the Senecas put the game away with a 14-2 run at the end of the third quarter.

Harvey had six points in the quarter, six different Senecas scored and Calvert had a 52-33 lead for the fourth quarter.

"We got a lot of help from our bench tonight," Mass said. "Both the Kevins (Cahill and Lucius) stepped up their play. We sort of challenged our big people. We didn't think they played really well (Friday) night, or against Danbury (on Tuesday). So we thought they needed to make their presence felt."

Dustyn Risner sat most of third quarter, but came back to score 14 points in the fourth and finish with 19. Harvey had 13, Lucius 12, Brickner eight and Tim Brodman seven.

Christian was the only Spartan in double figures.