February 24, 1999

Fremont St. Joe shoots like a gunfighter, on the mark

By Dave Feltner
Sports Editor

OLD FORT &emdash; Steve Lucius didn't even wait for a question. He just came out of the lockerroom, looked at the reporters and simply asked:

''Well, what did we shoot?''

He didn't know the futility's exact number, but Lucius knew that his team's shooting was the storyline in New Riegel's 50-34 loss to Fremont St. Joe.

The Blue Jackets shot a frigid 25 percent (12-of-48) from the field, and were bumped from sectional tournament for the second consecutive year after 10 straight advances to districts.

St. Joe moves on to Saturday night's finals to face second-seeded Calvert.

''We've played an awful lot of good teams this year &emdash; Margaretta, Danville &emdash;but (St. Joe) plays the best half-court defense we've seen this year,'' Lucius said. ''It's just good coaching. They probably spend 80 percent of the practice time on defense, I'm guessing. They play good 'D'

''We don't want to make this habit,'' he said of the two-straight sectional losses. ''We don't like that, so we're going to work hard in the off-season and see if we can get out of here next year.''

The Streaks' second key to victory was the defensive job point guard Melissa Geller did against Renee Lafontaine.

Lafontaine, who averages 22.6 points per game, finished with 19 against the Streaks (13-8), but hit just 1-of-8 field goals in the second half.

''Renee is a sweet kid, and my daughter knows her very well from playing ball with her for about three summers, so I just think she knows how to play defense on her,'' said St. Joe coach Gary Geller, Melissa's father. ''We also had a lot of good help on her. Renee really worked her butt off to get open, but Melissa stuck with her, and forced her into some tough shots.''

With Lafontaine shut down, the Streaks seized control at the start of the fourth quarter.

They led 33-26 at the end of the third and Geller helped provide some more cushion with a pair of sweet assists to Brea Busold to start the fourth.

Leah Strayer then tacked on St. Joe's sixth unanswered point with a layup of a dish from Erin Raubenolt for a 39-26 advantage.

New Riegel clawed to within 39-30 after a basket and two foul shots by Lafontaine. But over the final five minutes the Jackets would only score twice, on a Dawn Faeth foul shot and a Leanne Wertz 3-pointer.

New Riegel shot 2-of-13 from the floor in the fourth quarter and 5-of-23 in the second half.

''I don't know what Renee finished with, but whatever she had she earned,'' Lucius said. ''She's been our leader all year long. She took a lot of kids who were basically JV players, and made them into basically a varsity team. That was a tough roll for her to fill, but she did a nice job with it.

''We had a very young team this year, and we were 10-10 against a very tough schedule so it wasn't a very bad year at all.''

Wertz finished with six points for the Jackets. Amber Beckley and Janelle Reed pitched in four apiece.

Busold led the Streaks with 16, and Jamie Heberling contributed nine.