Oran's physicality too much for St. Vincent in loss

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St. Vincent boys basketball has had not much success against the perennial basketball powerhouse that is Oran. Coming into Friday’s contest against the Eagles, St. Vincent had fallen nine consecutive times.
Oran made sure that number grew to double digits.
The Eagles’ physicality in the paint and on the boards was too much for the Indians as Oran handed St. Vincent a 69-57 defeat at St. Vincent High School.
Longtime St. Vincent coach Bruce Valleroy used the rare regular season game as a tune-up for Oran in a possible district tournament matchup later in the season. This particular matchup has been snowed out six of the last eight years.
“You want to play teams like this to see where you are at this point in the year,” Valleroy said. “We can definitely get better thanks to games like tonight against teams like Oran. We always seemed to turn the ball over at bad times and didn’t block out on our free throws as well as I thought. I felt like we didn’t take advantage of our height. All these things are correctable.”
St. Vincent pounced out to a 7-0 lead as Oran didn’t produce its first basket until the 4:30 mark of the opening quarter.
From there though, it was mostly Oran. The Eagles ended the opening quarter on a 14-4 run, as St. Vincent scored just two points in the final four minutes. Oran led 14-11 after the first eight minutes. Valleroy felt like his team got beat up on the rebounding edge, despite his team’s decided height advantage.
“Oran did a good job attacking the basket and didn’t stand around and watch the shot go up,” Valleroy said. “They were very active.”
St. Vincent was led by Grant Abernathy’s 16 points, while Evan DeWilde and Blake Monier each had 10 points. Oran senior Quentin Senciboy had 17 points for the Eagles, while Nick Romas and junior Kolten Payne each scored 15 points in the win. Senior Seth Cauble added nine.

St. Vincent could not take advantage of Oran senior guard Diesel Cato got a pair of fouls in the opening two minutes of the game. The Indians kept it close, but with Cato sitting on the sidelines with foul trouble, the Eagles got offense from six different players, as it built a 34-28 margin at halftime.
The Eagles used that physicality to start the second half on a 7-2 run and kept St. Vincent at arm’s length for the rest of the quarter as they led 51-41 entering the final quarter.
“Oran has always been one of the top teams in our district every year,” Valleroy said. “Coach Shoemaker does a great job with his program and they are always a tough team to beat.”
Abernathy was able to get hot from the perimeter and hit a couple of three-pointers to narrow the deficit in the fourth, which kicked a comeback attempt for St. Vincent
Evan DeWilde hit a three-pointer to cut the Oran lead to 63-56 with two minutes left in the game. St. Vincent went into a full court press and forced a turnover on a long pass, but was unable to capitalize. St. Vincent turned the ball over themselves and Oran went down on their offensive end and two free throws.
Oran gave St. Vincent hope one more time by missing a pair of free throws, but St. Vincent had another turnover when a player dribbled the ball off his own foot, squashing any hope of a victory.
“It seems like every time we turn the ball over, the other is able to score off our mistakes,” Valleroy said. “It seems to hurt us on both ends, where we miss layups and we have to clean some of that up.”
Valleroy hopes his team can learn from tight games with quality opponents.
“You want to be in his close games, and you want the ball and to be in these types of situations,” he said. “I don’t know how many close games we have had the past few years and this group in particular. We had adversity this week with losses to a very good Advance team and here tonight with Oran. The question how we will respond?”
St. Vincent will play nine games in the next three weeks as their schedule ramps up, which includes when they travel to Greenville on Friday.