St. Vincent boys basketball coach Bruce Valleroy didn’t feel like his team came out ready to play on Saturday in the annual Mayor’s Cup.
“It felt like we left our intensity in the locker room,” Valleroy said.
They found that intensity in the second half.
St. Vincent rode a big third quarter to a 57-34 victory at the Perry Park Center. It was St. Vincent’s fourth straight victory in the series.
“I thought Perryville played with more desire and outplayed us in the first half in my opinion,” Valleroy said. “We had a gut check moment at halftime and I thought we played much better. We focused only on basketball and nothing else.”
St. Vincent did just that in the third quarter outscoring Perryville 20-2 in the third quarter alone, outscoring Perryville 34-14 in the second half.
“We need to have that same desire the rest of the year because we have some tough teams coming up and we have to play that way to beat them,” Valleroy said.
St. Vincent was led by Blake Monier, who had 17 points and was one of three players in double figures. Grant Abernathy had 15 points, including five three-pointers and Dylan DeWilde had 14 points.
Perryville was led by Ethan Blythe’s 10 points , whileJake Cissell had eight. Jack Fritsche added four points.
St. Vincent led 23-20 at the half , but asserted itself in the third quarter, kicking off the third with a 13-0 run, highlighted by baskets from Monier and a three-pointer from Abernathy. The only basket in the quarter was by Blythe at the five minute mark of the third. By then the Indians had grown the lead to 16 points.
Jacob Schremp, who had five points on the night added baskets at the end of the quarter as St. Vincent led 43-22 entering the final eight minutes.
“The third quarter is usually our bad one,” Valleroy said. “I thought we played much better and it was a three point game and all the sudden it was a 29-point game really quickly.”
It didn’t look like it would be that way at all, if a person was judging by the first half.
Abernathy hit back-to-back three-pointers to give the Indians a 11-5 lead early, but Perryville battled back with threes by Cissell, including one at the buzzer that tied the game at 11-11.
“I thought they were playing harder than us at times,” Valleroy said. “They were getting after it.”
A lay-up by Andrew Terbrak, gave Perryville a 13-11 lead to start the quarter, couple that with Terbrak’s six first-half blocks and the two teams seemed destined to be in a tight ball game.
That was until St. Vincent took over.
“We will enjoy this one especially because we don’t beat Perryville that often,” Valleroy said. “I don’t have the best record against the Pirates if you look back at the whole history of this event. So we will enjoy it.”
