Saints lose heartbreaker at home

On Wednesday, the Saints men’s basketball team fell in a hard-fought overtime battle to the Chemeketa Storm, 81-76.

The Saints started off slow against the Storm, digging themselves into a 16-point hole midway through the first half. The Saints were able to rally late in the half to bring that deficit to eight points, at 32-24.

The second half was very much of a back-and-forth battle as both teams seemed to answer every basket with a basket of their own. Late in the game, the Saints made an impressive comeback tying the score with less then two minutes to play.

With the score knotted 68-68 and less than a minute to play the Saints came up with a big defensive stop. Mt. Hood quickly called a time out with nearly 20 seconds left in the ball game.

The Saints ran their offense until sophomore Oleg Marandyuk found a hole in the defense. Marandyuk drove to the basket and drew a foul with seven seconds remaining. After making two clutch free throws Marandyuk and the Saints possessed a two-point lead.

Chemeketa’s point guard Kevin Brazille then drove the distance of the court only to miss a layup that was then tipped in by a teammate to tie the game at 70 with 0.5 seconds left in the game

The Saints inbounded the ball to Marandyuk, but there was too little time to even get up a full-court prayer.

Overtime started similar to the second half. The teams traded baskets until late in the overtime when the Storm were able to take a three-point advantage.

With 17 seconds left in overtime, the Saints drew up a three-point play. But the Storm were all over the play, intercepting a pass and soon drilling two devastating free throws that sealed the win for Chemeketa.

Head coach Geoff Gibor discussed the defeat. “It’s a tough, tough loss. But with that I’ll say that our guys played hard and competed and we got better,” he said.  “I think we played with a lot more aggressiveness tonight then we have for a few games and that’s good. You start looking at what were trying to get done and I think we made some steps in the right direction.”

The Saints were led by freshman Jamal Muhammad (23 points and seven assists), Marandyuk (17 points and four rebounds), and the spark off the bench, sophomore Jason Wallace, who finished with eight points and 12 rebounds.

Wallace gave his thoughts on the tough overtime loss.

“We started slow and weren’t ready in the beginning,” he said. “I feel like we had to get our confidence up. We came out shook a little bit, and when we got together we brought ourselves back and nearly won the game.”

Wallace continued, “It’s a learning experience, big learning experience for us. We are a young team and we’re still growing, so we just got to get ready for Lane.”

The OT loss came after a 14-point loss to SW Oregon last Saturday in Coos Bay, 86-72.

The 3-10 (0-2 in league play) Saints will take on the 9-7 (1-1 in league play) Lane Community College Titans, who are coming off a 22-point victory over Umpqua CC. Tip-off is set for 4 p.m. at Lane.

Muhammad, the Saints’ leading scorer, said about the upcoming Lane game, “I can’t wait.”