Basketball Recap Boys game 4

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Saints Display Remarkable Improvement in Close Home Loss
On Friday, the Salem A boys competed in front of the home crowd for the second time this season. All week long, our boys practiced with a sense of excitement that made me confident we would battle hard to defend our home court. Having the opportunity to play against the 3-0 Raiders from Crown of Life, our boys embraced the challenge of competing against one of the top teams in our conference. As has been the case in every game so far, our Saints faced a great size disadvantage. While the great length of Crown of Life led to many blocked and contested shots, our boys showed remarkable improvement at playing through the contact and finishing at the rim.
While our Saints trailed by only five points at halftime, Crown of Life came out of the intermission shooting the lights out from outside. The great size of the Raiders interior forced us to double team every post touch, which obviously led to many open shots from the guards. Unfortunately for the Saints, the Raiders’ hot second-half shooting forced us to switch from our usually effective zone defense to a tighter man-to-man approach. While the outside shots enabled the Raiders to stretch their second half lead up to double digits, our Saints’ remarkable heart and desire allowed us to cut the Crown of Life lead down to six points with just over a minute remaining. While our incredible second half offensive performance (24 second-half points) was not enough to pull off the comeback (final score: 29-37), I could not have been prouder of our team. Seventh-grader Griffin led the team with a game high 17 points. Eighth-grader Houghton played the best game of his basketball career at Salem, scoring 9 points and playing physical defense against perhaps the tallest grade school basketball player I have ever seen!
It is in games like this one, when our boys both show remarkable improvement from previous weeks and play with an awesome toughness and togetherness, that I am really reminded how much of a blessing it is to coach the great sport of basketball to such a respectful group of young Christian athletes.
By: Coach Travis Koester

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