Cougars/Countrymen take over Southern Regional

Before I start my post about the Cougars 53-46 opening round playoff win against Southern Regional, I just wanted to let all of you know that you should be lucky there is a blog or Twitter update tonight after Mike, Nate and I were threatened to be kicked out of the game by Southern's Athletic Director as we did not want to sit with East's students so that we could focus on the Twitter update. Eventually after five minutes of the lady yelling at us, we took our seats ready to watch a Cougar victory.

This turned out to be one of those games in which an attendee of the game felt as though the Cougars had it in the bag the whole game. They dictated the tempo of play, had better shooting than Southern and also seemed to rebound better. Yet, as the final score indicates this game was very close.

In a first quarter in which East clearly played better than Southern, Marc Schlessel had 5 points and Chris Santo had 8 points. The quarter ended with a 15-11 Cougar lead.

The second quarter was very similar to the first. Santo scored 7 more points to give him a total of 15 at the half. Jake Gurkin also played well in the quarter and the game as he scored 4 points in the quarter on his way to 11 total on the game. He looked good inside as he and Chris Santo piled up the blocks although blocks are not an official stat kept by the team. The Cougars appeared to be in good position to advance in the playoffs as they led 28-21 at

the half. Santo had 15 points and 6 rebounds at the half, Schlessel had 5 points, 4 rebounds and 5 assists and Gurkin had 6 points and 4 rebounds.

Before a Ben Gerstein three, Southern Regional went on a 5-0 run to start the quarter. Minutes later, Jake Gurkin hit a three and the assist was from Seth Friedman who on the pass broke Jeremy Kaminer's East single-season assists record. The Cougar lead was extended to 12 after another Gerstein 3 but was quickly brought down to 43-38 after a Southern 7-0 run. It looked as though the game would be close even though the Cougars seemed to have been closing out Southern just moments before.

After a Southern basket later in the fourth quarter, Friedman hit a 3 with the assist from Santo with 4:30 left in the game. This took some of the air out of a 10 person Uggs-clad Southern Regional crowd which seemed to sense that their team had a chance. Another three by Friedman followed by a Santo layup brought the Cougar lead up to 11 with 3 minutes left. Of course, Southern proceeded to go on a 5-0 run to cut the lead to 6 with 1:45 left. However, the Cougars eventually closed them out for the victory, 53-46.

The Cougars next game will be at number 2 seed Shawnee on Thursday night at 7. Shawnee defeated Cherry Hill West 39-33 tonight in the opening round of the playoffs.

Player of the Game:Santo. With his good work in scoring 19 points combined with his 12 rebounds, Santo led the team to victory particularly in the first half when he scored 15 of his points.

Stats

Santo-19 points 12 rebounds

Seth Friedman-10 points

Ben Gerstein-8 points

Jake Gurkin-11 points

Marc Schlessel-5 points