Tampa Catholic cruises against Neuqua Valley
Joe Sieger and his Neuqua Valley teammates had battled back to the .500 mark and picked up some momentum while reaching Wednesday's East Aurora Holiday Tournament championship game.
Now the Wildcats are hoping to put an 80-57 loss to powerful Tampa (Florida) Catholic in the rearview mirror and regain some of the momentum that the 13-1 Crusaders seemed to take away so easily at times Wednesday. With a pair of Division I stalwarts, the out-of-state visitors used a 23-0 explosion to close out first quarter with a 29-4 lead over Neuqua Valley (6-7).
“We turned the ball over way too much and almost every time we turned it over they scored on the other end,” said Sieger, whose Wildcats had 11 turnovers in the first half while falling behind 45-16. “It's really hard to score when you don't shoot the ball. That was what created that deficit.”
Sieger also felt Neuqua Valley didn't play its best defense in the tourney title game, but the Crusaders 6-foot-8 junior MVP Kevin Knox and 6-4 Oklahoma State University-bound guard Thomas Dziagwa had a lot to do with the team's struggles. Knox, one of top juniors in the nation, had 28 points and 11 rebounds on the night, while Dziagwa added 21 points and 7 boards.
“We've just got to make them take tough shots. They made a lot of shots, but I think we could have done a better job of playing defense on them; making their shots harder,” said Sieger, who tallied 19 points for the Wildcats and was named to the all-tourney team along with teammate Jacob Cushing.
Tampa Catholic coach Don Dziagwa, Thomas' father, said the first-quarter performance may have been his team's best so far this season.
“The first quarter was maybe the best quarter we've put together all year,” said the coach, whose team has won 13 straight after dropping its opener. “Not just the offense, but we really put a clamp on them. We took them out of their offense which is actually a real good sign for us.”
Knox, who has offers from Duke, North Carolina and several other big programs, closed the first half with a vicious slam dunk for the Crusaders, who went on to lead by as many as 41 points in the second half at 77-36.
Sieger and Donavan Wells combined for 23 second-half points for the Wildcats, but it was not nearly enough to keep up with Tampa Catholic, which played at the East Aurora tourney once before 10 years ago. The Wildcats senior guard is hopeful his team grows from the experience and returns to its winning ways after the New Year.
“I think we've grown a lot this tournament,” he said. “We've seen things we need to work on. Before this game I think we got a lot of our confidence back. I think we can carry that back into the conference season and the postseason. I think we have a lot of talent on our roster.”