Saturday, January 26, 2002
Old Fort pulls away in capturing MAL lead
By John Montgomery
Sports Writer
FREMONT - The sign held by the St. Joseph student said "Welcome to the Thunder Dome," but Old Fort's the one who stole the thunder Friday, and the outright lead in the Midland Athletic League.
The Stockaders battled their way to a 23-22 halftime lead before forcing 13 turnovers and stringing together a couple of solid scoring runs in the third and fourth quarters to thump the Streaks 69-43.
The win put Old Fort (10-3 overall) alone atop the MAL at 6-0 while St. Joseph is now tied with Mohawk and Calvert at 5-1.
"We set goals at the beginning of the season and winning the MAL championship is the first goal," Old Fort coach Rick Renz said. "We're getting there, but we've still got a couple of big hurdles."
And despite the score, St. Joseph was one of those hurdles.
The Streaks trailed by 10 twice in the first half (12-2 late in the first quarter and 15-5 early in the second), but David Babione bombed in a trio of 3-pointers, including one from more than 25 feet out, and two other jumpers to help narrow the gap to 23-22 by halftime.
"I was beginning to think there was a blue 3-point line out there because that volleyball line was where they were hitting them," Renz said. "That frustrated my kids a little bit in the first half, too, because we teach them that if they want to shoot them out that far, you let them.
"Teams hadn't been doing that to us, and then Babione hits a couple from that range, and what do you do?" he said.
Play a little tighter defense and turn a packed house on the road to your favor seemed to be the answer.
The Stockaders slowly built a 38-30 lead late in the third before ending the final 1:21 of the period with a 10-2 run for a 46-32 lead. Then they outscored St. Joseph 8-0 in the first 2:01 of the fourth to forge a 20-point advantage and never led by less than 19 after that.
"At halftime, all we did was talk about what we did in practice, stuff we do all the time defensively. For some reason, I don't know if was a big crowd or what, but we sort of got flat on defense," Renz said. "We were basically trying to stand a foot away from our man instead of being up in the passing lane as we normally do.
"I think a lot of that was the nerves in the first half. We came here at 5:15 and it was already a packed house," he said. "I think we relaxed then (during halftime) and I told them to go out there and really just enjoy the moment. That's what basketball's all about."
Babione ended with a game-high 25 points for St. Joseph, but his final 12 in the second half didn't come easy.
"(Bart) Ortiz and (Nick) Kerlin, I thought, really stepped it up defensively on him in the second half, and Matt Hoke, also," Renz said. "Matt came in and gave us some height on him."
Old Fort's pressure defense let just one other Streak score as many as five points while forcing 15 total turnovers and holding St. Joseph to a 17-of-51 shooting performance.
Kerlin paced Old Fort with 19 points, Drew Gaietto had 14 points and eight rebounds, Hoke added nine points and five boards, Lucas Stearns had nine points and Ortiz finished with seven points and five assists.
Now, with a one-game lead in the MAL race with four league games left, the Stockaders are inching closer to one of their goals. However, Renz said that doesn't mean they can rest.
"We just have to play every game like we want a tournament championship because if we win out, we've got the crown," Renz said. "We can't afford to overlook anybody. It doesn't matter what the record is, I think our kids are going to go hard."