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.
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.
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