20th
Outside shooting woes hurt Nazareth in close losses
By Derek Strum
The Doings - link
Originally published: December 18, 2008
Close hasn’t been good enough for the Nazareth boys basketball team lately — whether you’re talking about the score or from where the Roadrunners are taking their shots.
Nazareth dropped its third East Suburban Catholic Conference game in five days Saturday by falling to Carmel 48-41 in LaGrange Park after losing to Benet and former Roadrunners coach Gene Heidkamp 49-42 Friday in Lisle and Marist 45-43 Dec. 9 at home.
“(Saturday was) the third game in a row we’re right around the last minute tied or down two,” Nazareth coach John Bonk said. “Our defense has been pretty solid. We need to step it up offensively. Our perimeter shooting, we thought going into the year would be a strength, and we haven’t gotten to that point yet. We just haven’t hit from the outside, but our inside game has been solid.”
Carmel pulled away from a 32-32 tie entering the fourth quarter despite making only 7 of 13 free throws. Nazareth (1-5, 0-3 in ESCC) was a solid 10 of 12 at the line overall.
“They gave us a chance to get back in the game and we didn’t convert, missed a couple easy shots,” said Bonk, whose team also made only 1 of 12 shots to fall behind 7-2 in the first quarter.
Senior Eric Kraft (12 points, 6 rebounds) and sophomores A.J. Ryan (11 points) and Ryan Powers (9 points, 8 rebounds) led the Roadrunners.
On Friday, no matter how good the Nazareth’s defense was, there was one spot on the floor it couldn’t stop Benet: the free throw line.
Benet sophomore Dave Sobolewski and senior Joe Morris made Nazareth pay for every foul in the fourth quarter as the duo sank all 10 free throws they attempted.
“I think we’ve just got to get a little more mentally tough when things start to not go our way,” Bonk said.
The Roadrunners took a 31-29 lead late in the third quarter when senior Charlie Herr (8 points) drained a three-pointer, but the Redwings regained the lead for good at 33-31 on Mac Coffey’s steal that led to a layup.
“They out-toughed us a little bit on the perimeter,” Bonk said. “I thought our inside players did a nice job, but I thought their perimeter people really beat us up and gave our kids a little bit of fits. We lost a little bit of our composure at times and that’s something we can’t do.”
Kraft and Powers led the Roadrunners with 13 points apiece. Their inside presence helped cause Benet to get its seventh team foul and put Nazareth in the bonus with 32.1 seconds left in the third quarter. But Nazareth only made 8 of 14 free throws for the game.
Powers also grabbed four of Nazareth’s eight steals, including one late in the fourth quarter after Kraft’s basket had cut the Roadrunners’ deficit to 43-40 with 1:29 left.
“I thought our defensive effort was pretty solid,” Bonk said. “I thought we got lazy a couple times in our zone when we didn’t get the shooters and that’s been a bit of a bugaboo for us.”
Against Marist, Powers’ 17 points led Nazareth, which missed a three-pointer for the win and some earlier free throws.
