It was a cold shooting night for St. Anthony as the Saints couldn’t gain any momentum Friday night during a 58-54 loss at home to Bishop Montgomery.
The loss came on the heels of a big victory against St. Bernard to put the teams tied for second place; with Bernard losing Friday as well the Saints remain knotted for second place at 4-4 in league.
With some lineup changes, Saints’ coach Alan Mitchell learned something for the future as his team lost to a perennial basketball power.
“I just learned something for the rest of my career,” Mitchell said. “Just because it’s senior night doesn’t mean seniors got to start. When you give a team like (Bishop) with that type of coaching and his success – you give them any kind of hope or any type of light that can give them any kind of chance to win, they’ll jump on that.”
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Mitchell said the starting lineup hadn’t played together, so there were some missed opportunities.
“I’ll take that one,” Mitchell said. “I learned a valuable lesson with that.”
Although it was a tough shooting night, the Saints battled back multiple times through the night including at the start of the second quarter when Aman Haynes and Chandler Young tied the game.
The second quarter featured a lot of missed shots by both teams but Bishop Montgomery’s Christian Hall (20 points) and Cameron Brewer (6 points) kept the Saints at arm’s reach to give the Knights a 23-20 at halftime.
To start the second half, the Knights went right into the paint featuring Eric Gong who helped Bishop extend their lead scoring all six of his points to give Bishop a 7-point lead midway through the third.
After trailing 37-35 after the third thanks to a Brewer three, the Saints’ Darius Williams provided a spark scoring nine of his 14 points in the fourth quarter as St. Anthony looked to claw their way back into the game. Chandler Young scored nine points.
But the game was out of reach as the Saints’ weren’t able to get shots to fall late in the game as the Knights were able to pull away when the game went to fouls to try and cut into the lead.
While St. Anthony had a disappointing loss, St. Bernard also lost Friday night which puts a spotlight on the Saints games against Serra and St. Paul to wrap up regular season action.
