Conant can't keep pace with St. Laurence

For a while, it was hard to tell which boys basketball team came in 7-6 and which team came in 13-1 when Conant faced off with St. Laurence in a quarterfinal matchup at the Jack Tosh Christmas Tournament at York.

It took a late, driving basket by game high-scorer Jeremiah Williams (22 points) to give the Vikings a 21-20 halftime lead after Conant's deliberate pace and 3-2 zone slowed down the 13-1 Vikings and forced them into 4-of-16 shooting on 3-pointers, their signature shot.

But when Lance Jackson, Trey Davis, and Williams (twice) opened the third quarter with 3-pointers without a miss and Conant's only answer was Raj Mittal's 2 free throws, St. Laurence was on its way to victory No. 14, a 64-43 final that was definitely more competitive than it looked.

St. Laurence will play in the tournament semifinals on Saturday against the host team while Conant (7-7) plays in the fifth-place pool against St. Ignatius.

"They want to play at a very fast pace we don't want to play at," Conant coach James Maley said of the Vikings, a pace his team corralled in the first half but let slip away in the second.

Conant responded to St. Laurence's sluggish 3-point barrage in the first half with consistent play inside from forwards Mittal (team-high 20) and sophomore Devon Ellis (11), who proved effective even with Vikings sagging in all over them. Conant out-rebounded St. Laurence in the first half, shot 8-of-15 from the floor to St. Laurence's 8-of-24 and really only did two things marginally wrong.

"I felt like we should've gone inside more," Maley said, even against St. Laurence's sagging, man-to-man help style defense, as he envisioned that Ellis and especially Mittal could've had many more points if they could've gotten the ball more often. "For some reason," said the coach, "we couldn't find (Mittal)."

But Conant committed 9 first-half turnovers, several of them unforced, that really hurt them. And when St. Laurence emerged from intermission with its shooting touch in hand, the game got away from Conant quickly after the Cougars' Dom Benigni, Anthony Wachal and Jonathan Kolev made it tough for St. Laurence to get open looks from their spots in the 3-2 zone.

Meanwhile, the Vikings' Williams, along with Davis, Jackson and Slater from the perimeter and Finn Walsh from his point guard position were getting the game to the pace they wanted and generating the open looks on which they have capitalized all season.

"We came out in the second half and didn't execute," said Maley, something they'll hope to do Saturday against St. Ignatius