East defeats Ocean City, 54-46, in the 10th annual Olympic-Cape Challenge

The Cougars win versus Ocean City today pushed East's regular season record to 13-6. East has been playing very well as of late, as the Cougars are 6-1 in their last 7 games.

Because the game was all the way at St. Augustine, I nor Max could attend the game, so I can not comment on the gritty details of the game. But a few players who I talked to told me that East had control for pretty much the entire game, and that the game was not nearly as close as the final score indicates. At half, the Cougars were up 15. After 3 quarters, East was up 18. In the fourth quarter, Ocean City outscored East by 10, pushing the final score to an 8 point difference. But the reason why Ocean City's appears to have dominated the final quarter is due to a combination of a couple things: the Cougars holding the ball trying to waste the clock and not converting all of their free throw opportunities.

As has been the norm since last year, Chris Santo poured in another 20+ point performance, as he scored a game high 27 points in addition to his 9 rebounds. Santo has scored at least 20 points in 17 out of the Cougars' 19 games this season.

Sophomore Marc Schlessel hit 3 three pointers, en route to his 11 points, and fellow 10th grader Jake Gurkin contributed 10 points.

Guard Ben Gerstein had 4 points, and point guard Seth Friedman had 2 points alongside 12 assists, pushing his season assist total to 212. Friedman is currently averaging an impressive 11.16 assists per game.

East's next game is this Monday, February 15 against Capital Prep Charter. The game is at Cherry Hill East.