Freshman Mustangs Upset Holy Cross 36-34 To Advance To The Final Four of the Northern Kentucky Freshman Tournament
Brady Rowe to Cohen Trauth Through The Back Door For The Game Winner.
Avenge an Earlier Season 61-27 Loss To The Indians.
People often ask me why I still do this. It’s games like the one played by our Freshmen Mustangs Monday night at CovCath in the NoKyFreshman Tournament that keep me coming back. I would have hated to have missed it. In the largest turnaround in the history of Brossart Freshman Basketball, our guys out played Holy Cross on the Grand Stage of a Regional Tournament, and defeated them 36-34, after having lost to them 61-27 back on December 11th. A 36 point differential. There is something to be said about peaking at the right time.
Much as in the Dixie game on Saturday we played an incredible first quarter limiting the Indians to but 4 points as we built a 13-4 early game advantage, and then expanded the lead to 18-10 at the half. We maintained the lead at 24-22 after three quarters but things were getting tense as the Indians were getting the ball to the hoop, and hitting free-throws. They actually took a short lived two point lead early on in the fourth quarter, which was eradicated by a pair of Wyatt Feldman “And Ones,” to re-establish the lead. With 30 ticks remaining in the game, knotted up at 31s, again Feldman made it a three point Brossart advantage, and we were one rebound away from securing the victory. However, nothing comes easy, and it was not to be as the final intended Indian shot miss, was secured by them, and they hit a “3” tying the contest at 34 with 13.9 seconds to go in regulation. It was then that instinctively Cohen Trauth created an opening, and went backdoor. When Brady Rowe bounced him a strike for the game winning layup, it was the Indians who went to baseball season. Thankfully, one of our fans captured the moment:
On the night, we were led by Wyatt Feldman with 13 points. Cohen Trauth put up 11, including the game winner. While Holy Cross had some amazing athletes, on this night we had the better team. The Mustangs will be back in action in the Final Four of the Tournament Saturday afternoon at 1pm when we take on the Beechwood Tigers (double overtime winners over Lloyd), another team with whom we have a score to settle.
Clock Strikes Midnight for Freshman Mustangs, Downed 39-32 By Beechwood. It was not our day as the bigger, longer Beechwood Tigers took away our inside game, in advancing to the NoKyFreshman Tournament Championship Game.
Our Freshmen close the book on their season with a 16-14 record, and showed steady improvement throughout the campaign, where we finish in third place out of eighteen entrants in the Freshman Big Show. Their 16 wins is the best Freshman Team record since the 2011-12 Mustangs posted an identical 16 wins mark.
In my eleven years of coaching Freshman Boys, I always wanted them to emerge from their freshman season experience happy, healthy, and hungry to play one more game. This group has a ton of potential and we look forward to them continuing on into the future. We encourage them to take this accomplishment and to feed and water it daily until it grows into a major championship.
Todays game was attended by a huge crowd of Brossart faithful, including many young potential future Mustangs. We didn’t play our best basketball in the first half, yet managed to trail by only three points at halftime. Beechwood had a spurt midway through the third quarter from which we could not recover. Their superior size and length pretty much took away our inside game. We were led today by Jake Bricking and Wyatt Feldman with 8 points apiece.