St. Francis withstands Conant’s comeback bid
St. Francis already has won one tournament championship this season. It took a step toward a second title with Tuesday’s 60-55 victory against Conant in the first round of the Jack Tosh Holiday Classic at York.
“That’s huge for us,” Spartans senior Brian Spahn said. “We’re just trying to go as far as we can. We’ve got most likely De La Salle coming up, so we’re excited for the challenge.”
The bracket takes a big jump in degree of difficulty when the Spartans meet state-ranked De La Salle, the tournament’s No. 1 seed, at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
Conant (7-4) didn’t put up much of a challenge in the first half, falling behind 29-17 at the break.
“We appreciated the way our kids didn’t quit,” Conant coach Tom McCormack said. “We had 17 turnovers for the game, and ultimately that was too much for us to overcome. St. Francis is a good team, but we felt that several of our turnovers were unforced. When you’re trying to climb out of a hole you have to take better care of the basketball, and we didn’t take care of the basketball tonight.”
The Cougars gave St. Francis all it could handle in the second half, however, fighting back from a 17-point third-quarter deficit to pull within 3 points with 1:31 to play. It was enough to worry the Spartans (7-1).
“A little bit, yeah,” Spahn said. “It was tough. We nailed our free throws at the end, which was big.”
“We knew they’d come on,” added Spartans coach Bob Ward, whose team never trailed. “We knew that they’d try to man us and trap us. And they’re a physical team. The last half of that game was a slugfest, a boxing match, and we weathered their punches. We hit free throws.”
Ryan Coyle led the Spartans with 18 points, and guards Andrew Kimball and Nick Donati each added 12. Spahn dished 7 assists and grabbed 5 rebounds to go with his 5 points.
“For us he has all year long done a lot of things that go underneath the radar,” Ward said of Spahn, the Spartans’ leader in hustle plays. “He has a real knack for rebounding the ball offensively. He has a real knack when he does that to keep possessions alive and tip it out. He gets loose balls.”
Sixth-man Tim Manczko led Conant with 20 points in what McCormack called his best game of the season. Mitch Tednes added 12 points and 6 rebounds, and Josh Copher scored 10 points.
Conant meets Perspectives at noon Wednesday to start consolation-bracket play.