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| The 6th grade takes second place in a 50-43 loss. (Courtesy: Wing) |
This loss will undoubtedly sting more than last season, as the 6th graders were set up nicely to finally break through against their rivals.
When teams are undefeated going into the championship, it's always a bit dicey because they haven't been faced with adversity. And as their coach Leslie feared, they were vulnerable.
The 6th graders did not look overconfident, but simply outplayed in every aspect of the game.
Scoring 43 points in a 6th grade championship game will usually do the trick. But when your defense and rebounding completely disappear when it matters most, it will destroy you.
St. Mary's was up 5-4 briefly early on, but that's the last they saw of the lead as the 6th graders were outscored 11-1 in the latter minutes of the first, putting them behind 15-6 after one.
Michael stole an inbounds pass to start the second half to bring the 6th graders within four at 24-20. Shortly after, Ryan was whistled for a travel and slammed the ball just hard enough for the referee to issue a technical foul.
Most officials would've issued a warning, but this referee was a little whistle happy and did not tolerate it.
OLV then broke the game open and went on a furious run and extended their lead to 12 at one point in the 3rd quarter.
The player who sparked that run and will give the 6th graders nightmares was #24, who played as good of a championship game as you could ask for from your team's best player, scoring 26 points, more than half of his team's total for the afternoon.
#24 was simply unstoppable, hitting three 3 pointers, scoring in almost every way imaginable.
Jason Lei on the other hand was cold in the first half and only had 2 points midway through the third. But he woke up and triggered a rally with seven points on an 8-0 St. Mary's run to cut the OLV lead to 35-31 to start the fourth.
Jason then hit another shot in the first minute of the fourth that brought the 6th grade within two. That was as close as they got.
The game was lost on the defensive end where OLV shot the ball pretty much wherever they wanted. Even when the 6th graders forced OLV to take bad shots, absolutely nobody could grab a rebound.
Jonathan, Jason Hou, Allen all took turns on the low block and none of them were able to secure the ball. OLV made a living on second chance points, and on several possessions, third, fourth and even fifth chance points.
There were signs of a susceptible defense at the end of the year when they were giving up close to 40 points per game.
Offensively, they scored quite a lot, but missed many lay-ups, which could've made the score a lot more interesting.
Jonathan led the charge on offense with 17 points and Jason Lei finished with 11 points.
Michael had a solid game and hit a 3 pointer in the fourth as part of his 8 points. His three ball at the time cut the OLV lead to three.
Allen, who had 6 points, jump-started the offense in the first half with two jump shots, and Justin banked in a runner in the fourth for his 2 points.
Taking second place in a tough division is nothing to frown upon, but coming oh so close two years in a row makes it an extremely tough pill to swallow.
It will be another off-season of questions and looking back -- that all too familiar feeling.
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