ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. – Imagine building a perfect, seaworthy
boat and finally putting it on the water – only to realize that you
forgot the oars.
That’s pretty much what the Bradford High boys basketball team
did Saturday in falling to Jamestown 57-51 in the championship game
of the IAABO Tournament at St. Bonaventure University.
The Owls did everything right in the opener, knocking off
previously unbeaten Olean to advance to the title contest, but were
their own worst enemy in Saturday’s loss.
They executed in every aspect of the game save the most
important one: scoring the basketball.
“It’s plain and simple,” stated Dave Fuhrman, Owls coach. “We
executed in every other phase of the game except putting the ball
in the basket.
“We shot 17-for-49 from the field (35 percent) and 17-for-32 at
the foul line. It was just those two stats right there.
“We were also 0-for-8 from three and they made seven of them.
That’s 21 points we have to try to make up somewhere,” Fuhrman
reasoned.
“We played more than well enough in every other phase to win the
game.”
Indeed, the Owls crushed the 8-1 Red Raiders on the boards
43-29, including a 16-4 margin on the offensive end.
Junior center Ben Lanich keyed the Owls’ effort on the glass,
hauling down 12 boards to complement his team-high 19 points.
Dan Vecellio also brought down 10 boards, while Tom Morris and
Ryan LaBrozzi corralled seven errant shots apiece.
Lanich and LaBrozzi were selected to the all-tournament
team.
Defensively, the Owls limited tournament MVP Dominique Kendrick,
who scored 38 points in the first-round game, to 18 points in the
title tilt.
“We played well defensively,” Fuhrman pointed out. “We did a
pretty good job on Kendrick even though he had 18 points. They had
to work very hard to get their points.”
Both teams worked hard in the first quarter as the lead changed
hands 10 times.
In the second quarter Jamestown was able to put a little
distance between the squads, canning a few shots from deep and
forcing the Owls to rally from as many as seven points down.
Rally Bradford did as with two seconds left in the half Vecellio
kissed it nicely off the glass to make it 30-28 going into the
locker room.
The Owls faced an eight-point hole in the third, but baskets by
Lanich and LaBrozzi kept things under control at 44-40 going into
the final eight minutes.
With just under two minutes to go, three foul shots by Lanich
made it a two-point game at 51-49.
Then with just 33 seconds remaining at the same score, the Owls
had to foul and chose to put 5-4 freshman guard Carlos Rivera on
the line.
The young man stepped up and buried both free throws to give
Jamestown a crucial four-point lead.
The clock read 11.1 when Drew Kelly made one of two at the
stripe to keep hope alive for the Owls, but the Red Raiders were
4-for-4 in the last 10 seconds to seal the victory.
“We thought, ‘foul the freshman,'” Fuhrman recalled. “Maybe
he’ll feel the pressure in a two-point game, but I have to give the
kid credit. He went up there and knocked them down.”
The six-point loss is particularly frustrating when viewed from
the foul line.
Bradford was 19-for-22 in its upset of Olean, but shot 53
percent only 48 hours later.
If the Owls could’ve converted even 75 percent of those attempts
(24-for-32), that’s seven more points and they win the game.
“We haven’t shot the ball well in a lot of games,” Fuhrman
lamented. “We’re losing a lot of close games because we’re not
putting the ball in the basket.
“We’re shooting 41 percent as a team, overall. We’re averaging
about 53 points a game and that’s just not enough.
“Until we start knocking shots down, that puts a lot of pressure
on the rest of our game,” the Owls coach professed. “We’re capable
of doing it, we just have to do it.”
The Owls, now 4-6, won’t have much time to dwell on the
disappointing loss as they turn right back around and return to a
crucial stretch of the schedule.
Bradford begins a five-game District 9 League stretch at St.
Marys on Tuesday.
