Richmond Hill welcomed region foes St. Vincent’s Academy and Benedictine to the Wildcat Gym this past Tuesday. Both home teams failed to come away with wins, in both games free throws and foul trouble would play a factor for each squad.
The Lady Wildcats fell to 2-10, 0-4 in region 3-AAA, in a 53-25 loss that was never in doubt from the beginning. The Boys fared a bit better by jumping out to a lead then falling off in the end 48-38; they are now 5-8, 1-3 in the region.
In the ladies game, both teams were playing a man defense but the Lady Wildcats were using full court pressure.
A tightly called game by the officials resulted in Richmond Hill getting the lion's share of the foul calls.
The Lady Saints went to the line 14 times the first half and made seven of them. Richmond Hill had only two foul shots in the same time span.
By the end of the first period head coach Elizabeth Bennett had four of her five starters on the bench already in foul trouble. An anemic offense would exaggerate the problem.
Richmond Hill scored only four points in each of the first two quarters while St.Vincents surged to a 30-8 halftime lead. It would be the fourth period before the Wildcats leading scorer this season would even light the scoreboard. Tyler Carlson ended up leading her team with 10 points, but the fourth period comeback fell way short. St. Vincent’s was led by Mallory Morin with 13 points.
In the boys game, the Wildcats played as tight a man defense as they have all season. Benedictine was being smothered by the defense and didn’t make their first field goal until only 15 seconds remained in the first period. Going into the second, the Wildcats led 11-4 but were already starting to accumulate the fouls.
The much taller Benedictine were playing their zone defense and forcing the Wildcats to shoot from outside, and the Wildcats could not find a hot hand.
Chakiris Moss, who has averaged in double digits so far this season, couldn't even get his shots to fall and ended up with just two lone three pointers, one in each half. Robbie Bynum led the Wildcats with 13 points. Meanwhile, the Cadets were starting to find some inroads to the Wildcat defense.
Early in the second period Benedictine was already shooting bonus fouls.
The Cadets Joey Friess made four straight free throws in the period while his team mates finally started seeing some of their shots fall. A.J. DePhillips led the Cadets with 11 points while Jabry Bryan and Collin Barns added ten each.
The lead changed hands three times before the Cadets went to the locker room with a 19-18 advantage.
The game would go back and forth in the third period as well with the Cadets hanging on to a three point advantage going to the fourth period.
The Cadets trio of big men started getting their shots to fall in the second half and, along with the Cadets free throw advantage, the Wildcats would not be able to come back in the fourth.
Coach Altman called a time out after two quick baskets by the Cadets would give them their final lead with just over four minutes gone in the period. Benedictine shot 8 of 14 from the charity stripe that fourth period to hold off any chance of the Wildcat comeback.
Both squads will be at home tonight against Windsor Forest for a 7 p.m. Ladies start. They will travel to Claxton on Tuesday the fifteenth for a 6 p.m. start.