By Anthony Parelli
The Holy Cross boys’ basketball team found itself in a tough position, down double digits before even scoring a point.
Facing an almost impenetrable St. Raymond press, the Knights were never able to make up the deficit. Holy Cross fell 88-63 on the road in a CHSAA Class AA game for its third straight loss to open the season.
“They’re lengthy,” Holy Cross guard Joshua Wallace said of the Ravens. “They have long arms and they aren’t going to allow the longer pass. They take it away.”
Not only was St. Raymond able to play tough defense, but they capitalized at the other end of the floor as the Ravens (3-1, 3-1) totaled three players who scored at least 15 points. Meliek Thomas tallied 22, Tory Ferguson scored 17 and Kayvon Williams added 18 for St. Ray’s.
“We just didn’t defend,” Knights Coach Tom Marchesini said. “We’re giving up 20 points a quarter the first three games we played. We have to clamp down defensively.”
Marchesini called a timeout to calm his team down after falling behind 10-0 three minutes into the game. His strategy briefly worked: With 4:52 left in the second quarter, Holy Cross (0-3, 0-1) brought the deficit to just three points, but a 14-2 St. Raymond’s run put the game permanently out of reach. The Knights never got closer than 58-48 in the third quarter.
“It’s frustrating,” Wallace said. “But in basketball you have to play the whole game. There’s a whole second half and the score wasn’t too bad where we couldn’t come back. We were still in the game, but it obviously didn’t go our way in the second half.”
Wallace knows his team must avoid early lopsided scores early if they want to be successful.
“We have to fix that. We can’t keep coming out slow like that,” he said.
Jermaine Bishop paced Cross with 18 points. Christian Wilson added 15 and Wallace, who was in foul trouble chipped in seven. Marchesini believes turning their season around relies on the improved play of his young players He said it would be nice to play them 10 or 12 minutes a game, but they have to get 25 to 30 minutes from them to be successful. That can be overwhelming for a young player.
“Our sophomores are good players, they’re just raw right now,” Marchesini said. “They’re a little overwhelmed, which isn’t uncommon.”
It’s still early in the season for Marchesini and Holy Cross, and he believes they can work out the kinks and have some success.
“It’ll get better,” he said. “Right now they’re frustrated, we’re frustrated, but we’ll move on. We have no choice.”
