St. Gabriel - Wood Notes:
St. Gabriel came out flat as a pancake to start the game after their hard fought and disappointing loss to the top team in the league, the JCC, 2 hours earlier and found themselves down 20-2 late in the first quarter. However, their spirit was not broken and despite being exhausted from the minutes played against the JCC in the earlier game, they started to whittle the lead down. Too tired to press full court, St. Gabriel used a half court trap in the 4th quarter to finally force some turnovers and used the last bit of energy they had to whittle the lead down to 6 points twice only to see 2 clutch 3 pointers hit back to back by Barcelona and Gabriel to push the lead back up to 9 points; however, St. Gabriel made one last push when Medina hit a miraculous 3 pointer to cut the lead to 60-54 and the full court press caused a turnover and St. Gabriel had the ball with a chance to cut it down to a one possession game and they had 2 good looks at a 3 pointer but it was not to be as St. Matthews got the rebound, was fouled and hit 1 of 2 free throws for the final margin. St. Matthews played well and was able to endure the last few minutes with some clutch shooting. The refs did a good job of letting the kids play and despite the loss the St. Gabriel kids had as much fun the last 3 quarters of this game as they have had all year and that is what this is supposed to be about. As their coach, I couldn't be prouder of a group of boys who showed a never say die attitude in 2 tough losses on Sunday.