Saints lose second-half battle to Clackamas

On Wednesday night, the men’s basketball team suffered another close defeat, losing to Clackamas Community College, 75-70, in Clackamas.

“I told our guys that they did a lot of really good things,” said Saints head coach Geoff Gibor. “We absolutely battled to the end. They need to be proud of their effort.

“Unfortunately, we lost out on some scoring opportunities due to some turnovers. Down the stretch of a game, you have to take care of the ball and get good shots. There are times we do that well and other times that we do not,” he said.

The Saints unfortunately are way too familiar with close games not ending in their favor. They lost to Chemeketa, 81-76 in overtime, on Jan. 14 and to Portland, 77-75, on Jan. 21. Now 5-12 overall and 2-4 in league play, Mt. Hood sits at sixth in the South Region – two spots out of the NWAC playoffs.

On Wednesday, Mt. Hood led Clackamas 39-32 at the half, but then were outscored 43-31. The Saints outshot the Cougars, 46 to 43 percent, and outrebounded them, 41-32. But turnovers and free throws were the big difference. The Saints’ 19 turnovers, to Clackamas’s eight, were crucial, leading to 21 Clackamas points. Clackamas also shot 19 free throws, to just four for Mt. Hood.

“I feel like we were pretty aggressive but just did not get some calls,” said Gibor. “You can’t count on the officials to make all the calls.”

A non-call late in the game turned out to be huge.

Mt. Hood trailed 71-70, but Clackamas would score its last four points off free throws, after a missed shot by Saints sophomore Oleg Marandyuk that turned into two technical fouls when he argued with referees.

“It’s always a physical game with Clackamas, but I was definitely frustrated with the way the calls were going all game. I felt like we were attacking well and just weren’t getting the calls,” said Marandyuk.

“That last one was just very upsetting. I felt like I got hit and I should have been shooting free throws,” he said. “Overall, we didn’t lose because of the refs, we lost because we didn’t close them out,” he added.

Saints guard Jamal Muhammad finished with a team-high 17 points and Marandyuk, a guard-forward, scored 16 and grabbed 10 rebounds. Freshman Kody Kennedy added 12 points and seven rebounds. Sophomore Kylelle Brown contributed 9 points, seven assists and five rebounds.

“You have to learn from the Clackamas game and move forward. You have to be resilient in athletics,” Gibor said. “These situations are where your toughness shows through.”

The coach did see some positives.

“Our defense has been pretty good. We have been rebounding really well,” Gibor said. “This team is competing at a very high level. We just have to get better ball movement offensively and execute. When we move the ball, we normally get a good shot.”

Last Saturday, the Saints were on a roll as they beat Linn-Benton Community College, 69-55, in Gresham. Marandyuk and sophomore Jason Wallace each scored 15 points. Marandyuk grabbed 10 rebounds as Wallace came off the bench, adding nine rebounds.

“I just felt good,” said Wallace. “Honestly, I’m tired of losing. The advantage I saw, like always, is I felt like nobody can hold me in the paint. Only thing I need to work on is getting deeper position in the post more.”

Brown, co-captain along with Marandyuk, showed his presence on defense with seven steals.

Through 17 games, Muhammad is Mt. Hood’s leading scorer, at 17.8 points per game. But the scoring doesn’t mean that much to him if wins aren’t being produced.

“Being the leading scorer on the team never really mattered to me,” Muhammad said. “Yes, it feels good to know other teams are worried about me scoring, but the last few games I’m more focused on winning games and getting other people on my team to score. I gotta get better on dropping it off to my bigs and kicking it out to open shooters. I’m gonna do whatever I have to do to make us go to NWACs (playoffs).”

On Saturday, the Saints host Umpqua Community College, currently riding a three-game win streak. The pressure is on Mt. Hood to get past its run of tough luck.

“Defensively we are a strong team and we have great chemistry, on the court and off,” said sophomore Sterling Anderson. “We’re just a few tweaks away from being a great team and I believe we will get there.”

Brown knows that every game now is crucial.

“Just gotta have short-term memory… We will get another chance at (Clackamas) but we have a home game and we need to protect our house,” he said of Saturday’s contest. “It’s so serious I don’t know how much to stress on. (Winning now) is life or death for me and the other sophomores. We don’t know where we’re going next year and this could be our last time playing.”