Fighting Bees Begin Defense of MCC Crown with Road Victory
It took the No. 19 St. Ambrose Fighting Bees five
minutes to get going, but once they did there was no stopping them.
The Fighting Bees (1-0) would come back from as many as 14 points
to defeat the Kendall College Vikings (0-4) 81-73.
“In the first game is always tough to get going,
but once you get it under your belt you’re good to go,” Tom
Pavljasevic said.
Leading the way for the Fighting Bees was that
familiar name. Pavljasevic
had a game high 20 points as he went 9-14 from the field.
Pavljasevic also finished with four rebounds.
“As long as we’re winning, the personal stats
don’t mean much to me,” Pavljasevic said.
“The farther we get in making it to the NAIA National Tournament
and how far we go when we get there is all that matters.”
Following Pavljasevic in points and leading the game
in rebounds was Karl Petersen. Petersen
finished the night with 18 points and grabbed eight rebounds.
“I am really pleased with my performance, there
were a couple of opportunities that I wish I would have capitalized on,
but I still thought that I played pretty well tonight,” Petersen said.
Ten Fighting Bees players saw action on the night;
all but two saw at least ten minutes of play.
Fitzpatrick saw 33 minutes of action and dished out six assists
while scoring nine points. All
nine of those points came at key points in the game.
“We ran about ten guys deep and I thought that we
could have even gone deeper,” Shovlain said.
“It’s nice to know that if you are having an off
night, that any given guy on the team can come in and basically step up
where you left off. It keeps
the team confident with each other,” Pavljasevic said.
Kendall tried to enforce a 3-2 zone defense, but with
solid ball movement and Fitzpatrick left wide open on the opposite wing,
it didn’t take long for Fitzpatrick and the Fighting Bees to build their
lead.
“Once we got through the first four or five minutes
we proved that we were a good team,” point guard Matt Fitzpatrick said,
“because we fought back and really found a way to win.”
This was the Vikings fourth game of the season and
the Fighting Bees first and it showed.
The Vikings came running out of the gates as they jumped out to a
16-3 lead. While it took the
rest of the first half for the Fighting Bees to close the gap, they would
go into the locker room trailing 38-36.
“It probably helped them out a lot (playing three
games prior to today), because after our first five minutes we got going
and started to play good basketball,” Fitzpatrick said.
Four Vikings scored in double digits accounting for
74% of the team’s points. Leading
the way was Scott McBride. McBride
finished with 16 points while grabbing seven rebounds.
Cody New scored 14 points, Phil Forte, who grabbed
seven boards, scored 12 points and finishing out the pack of players in
double digits was Allen Aguada with 11.
It was not long after an inspirational halftime
speech by head coach Ray Shovlain that the Fighting Bees would jump out in
the second half with a ten-point run and erasing the two-point deficit.
The Fighting Bees would even take a 14-point lead (61-47) with
10:58 left in the game.
The Vikings would not go away though as they would
battle back to within four with only five minutes to go in the game.
As the minutes rolled down, the lead would slightly grow.
The Vikings attempted to put Petersen on the free
throw line in hopes that he would miss, only to be deceived by his
6’9” size. Petersen went
4-4 from the charity stripe in the games final minutes and finished the
game 6-7 from the free throw line.
“In high school, I was always the guy they would
throw the ball to (in those end of game situations) and you want to have
the ball in those type of situations,” Petersen said. “As long as you
make sure that you knock those free throws down.”
“We’re (the coaching staff) are very pleased with
the victory, considering this was Kendall’s fourth game and this was our
first. They got some of their
kinks worked out (in those previous games),” Shovlain said. “We’re very proud of our guys especially when we fell
down by 14 and battled back to win.”
The Fighting Bees will travel back the Chicago area
once again on Tuesday to face off against Trinity International University
at 7:00 p.m. The Fighting
Bees will then come home to Lee Lohman Arena on November 15th
and 16th to host the St. Ambrose Classic.
The tournament will open with Barat College facing
off against Bellevue (NE), at 5:30 p.m.
In the nightcap, the host Fighting Bees will take on Emmaus Bible
College at 7:30 p.m. (or 20 minutes following the previous game). On Saturday, the consolation game will be held at 1:00 p.m.
and the championship game will be held at 3:00 p.m. (or 20 minutes
following the completion of the consolation game).
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