Lejeune boys drop Rosewood
By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on November 29, 2011 1:48 PM
Lejeune played steady.
Rosewood lost its composure.
The Eagles endured a haunting second-half scoring drought, squandered a 19-point lead and suffered a season-opening 70-52 defeat against Lejeune on Monday evening.
"We started the game great, our shots were going in," said Rosewood head coach Daniel Mitchell. "Our level of play was high to start the game. They made some adjustments, picked up their level and I don't think we played smart."
A squad that lost six starters off last year's sectional runner-up team, Rosewood electrified a sparse home crowd early in the opening quarter. Shane Whitley swished a pair of 3-pointers off assists from Dee Mabry and Josh Davis, which spearheaded an 11-point lead.
Jyonte Raynor, Zach Thornton and Will Winslow also got into the scoring act for the Eagles, who led 21-10 after one period.
Rosewood stretched its lead to 29-10 in the second quarter, but began to lose its intensity. The Devilpups ripped off a 16-3 run and trailed 32-26 with around a minute left before halftime.
The Eagles led 36-26 at the break.
"Midway through the second quarter, the game started to change a little bit," said Mitchell. "They picked up the intensity a little bit and we didn't do a good job of handling it. I thought we played hard, but I didn't we played smart and I didn't think we played together."
Lejeune launched a full-court defense in the third quarter, and Rosewood struggled to work the ball upcourt. Once the Eagles crossed the midcourt stripe, they never found an offensive rhythm.
Devilpups guard Craig Wilson drained three 3-pointers and hit the go-ahead basket to make it 40-38. The visitors extended the lead to 50-39 and led by as many as 22 points in the final quarter of play.
The Eagles managed just one field during the first 101/2 minutes of the second half.
"The full-court pressure sped us up, we didn't handle it very well and we couldn't get into our offensive set," said Mitchell. "During that whole time span when they were making the run, we did a really poor job of running our offense."
Wilson led all scorers with 24 points.
Raynor and Mabry paced the Eagles with 14 and 10 points, respectively.