Cougars dispatch Gloucester Catholic 44-29

In a low-scoring game this afternoon, the Cougars handled Gloucester Catholic 44-29 to bounce back after the tough defeat at the hands of Williamstown. The Cougars were clearly the more talented team out there today as they manhandled Gloucester Catholic defensively.

A baseball game broke out in the DiBart gym after the opening tipoff. Marc Schlessel ('12) had all seven Cougar RBIs in the three innings after two two-run home runs and a three-run home run. Catholic mustered a fourth inning three-run home run but the Cougars carried a 7-3 lead into the second quarter.

The baseball game became very high scoring in the second quarter as Chris Santo ('11) scored six points with a two-run home run and two two-RBI doubles. Edou Zaken ('11) also singled in an RBI in the quarter. Nine runs crossed the plate for Catholic in this stage of the game. However, Jake Gurkin ('12) prevented much more serious damage with his amazing defensive play with six diving catches (blocks). Santo had three.

Finally, basketball began in the second half. Dan Melleby ('11) hit two three-pointers in the third quarter as the Cougars opened up a 30-18 lead by the end of the third. Finally, the Cougars began to assert their physical dominance over their small but fast opponent. The first half was a struggle for the Cougars to score, but they soon adapted to Catholic's quick defensive play.

The fourth quarter was also a display of solid basketball for the Cougars. Alex Kauth ('11), Sam Rose ('11) and Jesse Gold ('12) got in on the scoring in the quarter as the Cougars built a bigger lead to end with the final of 44-29.

This was not nearly the best game the Cougars could have played, but they got the job done once they adjusted to Gloucester Catholic's speed.

Key Stats

Santo-15 points, 4 blocks, 12 rebounds, 3 steals, 3 assists

Schlessel-12 points

Gurkin-7 blocks, 7 rebounds

Player of the Game-Santo. Once he got into the scoring, the Cougars pulled away. His defense along with Gurkin on the inside is what really separated East from Gloucester Catholic today.

Cougars lose a defensive game to Williamstown 56-44

Chris Santo ('11) set the all-time Cherry Hill township scoring record held by Brian Spell of Cherry Hill West in 1988 by making a jump shot early in the first quarter. Santo went on to score 27 points along with nine rebounds. But that was not enough for the Cougars as they fell short to Williamstown losing 56-44 in the opening round of the annual Virginia B. Whitaker invitational.

It was one of the more frustrating games watching East play. They shot 4-29 from beyond the arch, 8-16 from the line and had 16 turnovers. Overall it was an upsetting performance by Chris Santo and company.

The first quarter looked promising as East was making the majority of their shots. Santo had only missed one shot in the quarter scoring 12 of East's 14 points. The other two went to Marc Schlessel ('12) on two free throws. The quarter was tied 14-14.

The second quarter started off very slow for the Cougars as they didn't score their first points until six minutes in. They ended the quarter with only five points, all from Santo. At the half Santo had 17 of 19 points for East and shot 7-11 from the field. Schlessel on his worst shooting performance of his two-year career had grabbed six rebounds which led the team. Williamstown had the lead at the half 22-19.

The game was still close for the Cougars as they were only down by three points, but they needed to connect on their shots to stay in this game. However, they missed shot after shot only scoring 11 points for the quarter. East was outscored 19-11 in the third making them down 11 going into the final quarter, which turned out to be a nerve-wrecking one.

With four minutes left on the clock East was down 46-35 and they started to come back. Jake Gurkin ('12) had a nice put back from a Santo missed three cutting the Williamstown lead to nine. After a missed shot by Williamstown, Schlessel was fouled and made 1-2 from the line. East, down eight at the time, pressured Williamstown into having a back court violation giving East the ball back. Santo missed a shot, but Dan Melleby ('11) who got his first start of the season, stole it away and passed it to Santo for a layup trimming the lead down to six. Over the next minute, Williamstown had two turnovers without even stepping on the court. One five-second violation on the inbound and the other when a player moved on an inbound after a turnover, which is illegal. However, Williamstown kept the Cougars from scoring and scored four points of their own bringing the lead back to 10 with the score being 50-40 with 1:40 left on the clock. East brought it down the court and Gurkin made a layup bringing the Cougars within eight points when everything fell apart.

East continued to miss shots and Williamstown made 6-8 free throws to finish off the game with a win 56-44. Schlessel failed to connect on a three pointer shooting 0-8. He did grab a career high 10 rebounds.

Other key stats of the game were Sam Rose ('11) five assists, Melleby had two of the four 3-pointers for East scoring six points and four assists, Gurkin grabbed seven boards and Santo scoring 27 and nine rebounds.

So once again, the Cougars blew a close game in the third quarter as they went on to lose their second game in a row.

Player of the game: Santo. He broke the all-time Cherry Hill scoring record (he now has 1904 points) and grabbed nine rebounds keeping East in the game as long as he could.

East's next game is at home against Gloucester Catholic December 30, 2010 followed by their first away game against Olympic Conference rival Lenape on January 4.

Cougars lose heartbreaker to Bishop Eustace 64-62

This was one of those games that just makes you shake your head as East lost to Eustace Wednessday 64-62. Although Eustace is a well-respected team in the South Jersey basketball community as they entered the season 2nd in the Courier Post's preseason poll, the manner in which the Cougars lost this game was overwhelmingly frustrating.

The Cougars started off solidly in the first quarter as Chris Santo ('11) looked much more comfortable on the perimeter than he did in the first game of the season as he hit two three-pointers in the quarter. Behind the offense of Santo along with Marc Schlessel ('12) (five points in the quarter), East took a 16-13 lead by the end of the quarter.

The Cougars dominated the second quarter, led by a scoring spurt from Justin DeJesus ('11) off the bench. DeJesus contributed ten points in the quarter behind two three-pointers, a putback after an offensive rebound and a backdoor layup. Along two Schlessel threes and scoring from Santo and Jake Gurkin ('12), the Cougars ended the half with a seemingly commanding 41-28 East lead.

It all unraveled in the third quarter. Eustace outscored the Cougars in the third 23-12. The team seemed sluggish as Eustace upped the tempo of the game. A somewhat surprising trend in the third quarter was that DeJesus did not play. Perhaps Coach Valore was still upset with his earlier intentional foul on Sho Dasilva of Eustace as he went in for another dunk in the second quarter. The Cougars still had lots of work to do for the win as they led only 53-51 at the end of the third.

The fourth quarter was devastating. The teams traded baskets throughout the quarter. East built a five-point lead midway through the quarter at 62-57 behind the scoring of Santo. It was around this point when Santo's mouth began to bleed. Eustace Coach Rob Falconiero promptly pointed this out as Santo was forced to miss a play. Luckily, Ravin Patel ('13) stepped up and took the jersey off of his back so Santo could re-enter with a blood-free jersey as number 23. Eustace scored five straight points even with Santo back in the game to tie it up. Then, with the score tied at 62, Santo committed an "offensive foul" and fouled out. The reason the offensive foul is in quotation marks is that the foul clearly seemed to be on the defensive player. Santo supposedly committed four offensive fouls on the day. However, Santo fouling out spelled doom for the Cougars. The Cougars got the ball left with a minute left as they attempted to hold the ball for the last shot as there is no shot clock in high school. This strategy failed as they turned the ball over to Eustace. Eustace then sank a jumper from the side of the basket to take a 64-62 lead with 2.3 seconds left. It was not over. Jesse Gold ('12) had a beautiful hail mary pass from the Cougars' own basket to Dan Melleby ('11) who was just in front of the foul line near the Eustace basket. Melleby caught the pass and barely missed a difficult attempt to tie the game. It was amazing that this play even made it to Melleby. 64-62, Eustace.

This trend of losing huge leads in the third quarter is very disturbing. It happened last year on various occasions, including against Cherokee (then #1 in South Jersey). It seems as though the Cougars may tire out as the game progresses with their up-tempo offense. Obviously, Valore knows that he is doing much more than I do, but it would seem to not hurt to possibly give some of his star players more of a rest. Is there really any reason why it would not hurt to take Gurkin or Santo out for two or three minutes? Schlessel got a little bit of rest in there. If these key players could be preserved for the end of the game a little bit more, wouldn't that help at the end of the game?

The foul calls on Santo seemed to be a disgrace. The calls were very close on multiple occasions and almost everyone at the game felt as though some should have been called on Eustace.

Player of the game: DeJesus. He kept the Cougars in the game with his scoring. Although his foul was not a smart play, he should play more (even to spell some of the stars on the team). He proved that he can score off the bench and be a positive contributer. DeJesus proved Wednesday that this team does have depth unlike teams in the past couple of years.

Cougars hold on to defeat Timber Creek 56-53 in season opener

In a game that was way closer than it should have been, the Cougars defeated Timber Creek 56-53. The Cougars never trailed during the game, but they let Timber Creek get close at the end when it counted.

As expected, Sam Rose, Marc Schlessel, Chris Santo, Edou Zaken and Jake Gurkin were the starters.

East started off the game with a bang after a Gurkin three-pointer. The Cougars led 10-2 with 4:48 left in the quarter after a Santo layup and five Schlessel points. Timber Creek got right back into it, scoring five straight to cut the Cougar lead to three. Santo then made two foul shots and then Schlessel hit another three-pointer. Timber Creek came back to cut the lead to 15-14. Then a Dan Melleby three gave East the four point lead. Another Timber Creek three cut the lead to one at the end of the first.

The second quarter was very similar to the first without as much scoring. Turnovers were the name of the game today. East ended the half with a 29-25 lead. Schlessel led the team in scoring with 11 first-half points, especially impressive considering it was his first game back since breaking his left hand. He also led the team in turnovers with four in the half. However, this can be attributed to his lack of time able to play with his teammates in scrimmages before the season began. Santo had nine points in the half as well as two rebounds. Gurkin had an astounding four blocks in the half to go along with four rebounds.

East came out gunning in the second half as they raced out to a 37-27 lead after a Gurkin basket and Schlessel and Melleby threes. East maintained a steady lead in the quarter behind baskets from Santo and Schlessel. The quarter ended with the play of the game as Melleby had a beautiful inbound pass to Santo that he caught and shot in mid air with less than a second left in the quarter. The score was 44-33 at the end of the quarter.

Although the East lead seemed secure, Timber Creek went on a 7-0 run to cut the lead to 44-40 to begin the quarter. A Gurkin three followed by a Timber Creek basket then a Santo layup and one extended the East lead to 52-42. Timber Creek refused to go away as they cut the lead to 52-50. Santo fouled a Timber Creek player who made one shot to cut the lead to one. Santo then made a bucket for the Cougars. With less than a minute left, Timber Creek made an unbelievable layup off the upper part of the backboard. Santo proceeded to convert on a backdoor layup opportunity to give East a three-point lead. Finally, Timber Creek failed to make a three-pointer on their last attempt. It appeared as though the game had been won, but after Santo gathered in the rebound, Rose inexplicably stepped out of bounds. Thankfully, Schlessel played smothering defense on the man who caught the Timber Creek rebound as Timber Creek failed to get off their final shot with .6 seconds left. 56-53 Cougars.

This game was interesting for various reasons. First off, Coach Valore used deviated from using only his starters, something we almost never saw last season. Justin DeJesus, Melleby and Jesse Gold each saw significant action and performed pretty well. Schlessel played well, especially for his first game after his injury. Despite his seven turnovers (likely because he hadn't played in scrimmages with the rest of the team) his presence was definitely needed for the win as he contributed 17 points. If he was not able to play today as originally expected when he was injured, the Cougars likely would have lost.

Perhaps the most positive change noticed from last year was the intensity on the court from Gurkin. He looked like a completely different player out there as he brought down every rebound hard and blocked six shots. Last year, Gurkin sometimes seemed to play a little bit small, but today he played even bigger than he is with the ferocity that a successful rebounder needs. Fittingly, he had ten rebounds.

Melleby also provided a lot of confidence for the upcoming season in the head of a fan. Despite not having a huge impact on the stat sheet, Melleby proved to be a steady asset on the court as he made good crisp passes. He looked like the player we need who made second team all-conference his sophomore year.

Santo also deserves lots of praise for his play today. He really backed up what he said in the papers of his sole goal of winning. He acted like he realized this is the deepest team he played with and provided his teammates opportunities to be successful.

The style of the refs was very unusual tonight. There were more traveling calls in the game than I have ever seen in my life in any level of basketball. There was also confusion at the scorer's table which resulted in three East foul shots and the ball at a critical point.

Player of the Game-Schlessel. Based on the fact that he wasn't even supposed to play today, Schlessel made an extremely positive impact on the game with his hustle and scoring. He applied constant pressure on the Timber Creek offense, something the Cougars need to replace the tight press defense of Seth Friedman and Ben Gerstein last year. His three-point shooting was solid as usual. The turnovers were obviously a problem, but he was definitely the most valuable player on a night when nobody thought he would play just a month ago.

Final Stats

Santo-22 points, 6 rebounds, 3 steals, 2 blocks, 8-16 shooting.

Schlessel-17 points, 3 assists, 3 steals, 6 rebounds

Gurkin-8 points, 10 rebounds, 6 blocks

Rose-3 points, 5 assists

Melleby-6 points, 3 assists

Season Opener

The season opens tomorrow against Timber Creek at East at 3:45. Timber Creek appears to be a solid, athletic team according to Coach Valore. Hopefully, this will be a Cougar win before a difficult game against Bishop Eustace next Wednesday. Check back for a full post-game recap tomorrow night!

GO COUGARS