Eustace 50, Holy Cross 26

If you pick up the paper tomorrow and wonder why there are no Holy Cross quote, I offer the following explanation:

Following the game I went first to the victors, as usual, especially since Eustace was on the road. Sometimes visiting teams split quick. I talked to Coach Reitano, then Lindsay Hudspeth and I figured I'd just get HC coach Fred Phillips when he came out of the locker room. I sat down in the bleachers to wait, saying to myself that if he didn't come out in the time it took to add up the box score, I'd think about taking off. Ten minutes later, the box score was done and I looked at my watch. The game had ended 20-25 minutes before and it was about 8:30, getting close to a tight deadline fit.

So I waited a few more minutes and noticed that some of the HC players were out of the locker room, but no head coach. What's more, something rather unpleasant must have been going on behind closed doors because most of the varsity players who were out were either crying or had clearly been crying recently. I don't want to speculate on what was happening, but nobody on that team was happy.

Not that there was reason to be happy, but I think abject sadness was probably a little overkill. After all, Eustace had the best two players on the court and a supporting cast equal to anything HC put up, talent-wise, so the score was not a huge surprise. As far as I could tell, the Lancers played hard. They rebounded pretty well, they went to the floor for loose balls, they frustrated Lazos in the post, etc. They just weren't good enough basketball players tonight.

Eustace took advantage of HC's special attention to Lazos to get wide-open shots on the perimeter, and every mistake they made seemed like the result of a calculated risk, i.e. a 75-foot outlet pass to a wide-open player that ended up just out of reach. The Crusaders moved the ball well, buried their open looks, buried their foul shots, didn't allow many uncontested shots and did a decent job on the defensive glass. That's a recipe for success at any level, and there wasn't much that Holy Cross could have done. Perhaps there were things that the coaching staff was telling the players that they were not heeding on the court, but I'm not sure it would have made much difference in the final analysis. I'm no coach, and wouldn't presume to even imagine the complexities of getting dozens of teenage girls to work together in a harmonious program, but the Lancers will play better games against beatable teams. It just seems to me like restraint might be the better part of valor in this case.

But again, all I saw were some tear-stained cheeks.

Anyway, here are a few links from today's paper, starting with the Gami-Wilson game story:
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051219/VARSITY/512190354/1023

And here's a link to the weekly GB report:
www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051219/VARSITY/512190357/1023

And here's one more link, the KC's Q & A with Haddonfield's Martha Lupinski:
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051219/VARSITY/512190355/1023

I'll be at Cumberland-Deptford tomorrow, barring some unforeseen event. Both of these teams are supposed to be in the mix for the Trico Royal title. The Colts beat GC on Friday night to announce its candidacy and the Spartans fell to Clearview, casting doubt upon theirs. It's odd to talk about a must-win game in the first week of the season, but it's hard to imagine Deptford going on to win the Royal after starting 0-2.

We'll see what happens.