Spartans play uninspired in 55-31 3rd-place loss to St. Thomas Aquinas
By Michael Ashford
Monday, March 10, 2008
TOPEKA — For at least a quarter of Saturday’s third-place game at the Class 5A State Tournament, it appeared as if the Emporia High boys had shaken off Friday’s semifinals loss to Bishop Carroll and were ready to do battle with St. Thomas Aquinas.
It took another quarter for everything to completely unravel for the Spartans.
After the Saints led by four points at the end of the first period, St. Thomas Aquinas held Emporia to just two points in the second quarter, which broke the game wide open and consequently broke the Spartans’ spirit, as the Saints went on to win, 55-31.
“Things just had an avalanche effect,” EHS coach Rick Bloomquist said. “Once things started to go bad, it all went all at once, and we couldn’t recover. We didn’t have the spirit and we didn’t have the mindset to recover.”
Led by the exploits of senior Clinton Mann, who has signed to play at Iowa State next year, St. Thomas Aquinas outscored EHS 18-2 in the second quarter. Mann scored the first seven points in a 16-0 run to open the frame that essentially demoralized the Emporia players.
Mann finished with a game-high 20 points, scoring around, under and over the top of the Spartan defense. He scored from inside the lane on driving layups, hit a pair of 3-pointers, and also pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds.
“He’s a tough player to guard,” EHS senior Brandon Childs said. “He can do a little bit of everything.”
It didn’t help that Emporia’s main scorers simply could not get shots to fall.
Emporia’s leading scorer, senior Caydrick Bloomquist, who entered the game as the tournament’s leading scorer with a 24.5-points-per-game average, finished with just three points on 1-of-10 shooting, his only make a 3-pointer in the first quarter that drew the Spartans even with the Saints at 5-all.
“I feel bad for my seniors, but I feel incredibly bad for Caydrick,” Bloomquist said. “It was a game that he wants to forget. It’s unfortunate that with as much hard work and with as much blood, sweat and tears that he’s put into this program, that he’s had to finish his final game playing the type of game that he did.”
Caydrick Bloomquist’s backcourt mate, junior Taylor Euler, didn’t have it much easier. Though he finished with a team-high 14 points, Euler made just 5 of 22 shots from the field and went 1-for-11 from three-point range. No other Spartan scored more than five points.
“Our shots didn’t fall,” Coach Bloomquist said, “and we weren’t crisp.
“I don’t think that deep inside they wanted to be here. They had the goal of playing in the championship game, and didn’t get it. With every high there’s going to be a low. We couldn’t recover from the low after Friday night’s loss.”
The Spartans began the game well enough, as Bloomquist’s trey with 5:01 left in the first quarter drew EHS even with the Saints at 5-5, and Emporia took the lead soon after when Euler hit a mid-range jumper to make it 7-5.
The Saints answered with back-to-back threes from Keith McCullough from essentially the same spot — the deep left corner — that pushed Aquinas back in front at 11-7. The first-quarter scoring closed with a layup from Euler and a pair of free throws from Mann, as Aquinas led, 13-9.
“I thought after a little while we were doing fine,” Rick Bloomquist said. “I thought we stayed with them and we were playing with them.”
Things then got ugly for EHS.
Mann opened the second period with a pair of driving layups sandwiched around a 3-pointer from the top of the key that pushed the Saints’ lead to 20-9. That opened a 16-0 run for Aquinas that was capped by a basket by Jared Henry with 1:44 left in the half, which made it 29-9.
During that stretch, the Spartans missed all 12 of their shots and turned it over four times.
“We weren’t working the ball around and we weren’t getting up the shots that we needed to,” Childs said. “We were forcing a lot of things, and our defense obviously wasn’t that good.”
Jacob Torres finally broke Emporia’s scoring silence with a layup with 1:22 remaining in the frame, but Henry hit two free throws on the other end with 5 seconds left that gave the Saints a 20-point lead at 31-11 heading into halftime.
“They went through an 8-minute stretch where they really took it to us,” Bloomquist said. “Our spirit was just demolished.”
In the first half, Emporia went just 5-for-26 (19 percent) from the field, including a 1-for-12 showing from three-point range.
Things didn’t get much better for Emporia in the second half. The Spartans’ shooting improved, but only minimally, as they made 7 of 27 shots (26 percent).
Aquinas was even more potent with the basketball after the break, though, as the Saints shot a blistering 71 percent (10-of-14) from the field in the second half. The Saints got their lead to as large as 29 points, and the lead only dipped below 20 points once.
Lost in the ugly loss was the fact that the Spartans still finished fourth, an achievement considering the Spartans were underdogs from the start.
“I did tell the kids, ‘You have to understand that we had a nice season. We made changes and we got better. We had some ups and downs, but we had more ups than downs,’” Bloomquist said. “They have nothing to be ashamed of and everything to be proud of. It’s just unfortunate that we had two games that didn’t work out our way.”
St. Thomas Aquinas 55, Emporia 31
Saturday at Topeka
Emporia 9 2 8 12 — 31
STA 13 18 12 12 — 55
Emporia (15-11) — Isiah Essex 0-0 0-0 0, Eric Reimer 0-0 0-1 0, Brandon Childs 2-6 0-0 4, Bryce Childs 0-0 0-0 0, Caydrick Bloomquist 1-10 0-0 3, Greg Canales 0-2 0-2 0, Taylor Euler 5-22 3-4 14, Matt McAnarney 1-3 0-0 3, Marcus Jamison 0-1 0-0 0, Jacob Torres 1-2 0-0 2, Darnell Bartlett 0-0 0-0 0, Troy Pierce 2-7 1-1 5. Totals 12-53 4-8 31.
St. Thomas Aquinas (16-9) — Tommy Harrison 0-0 0-0 0, Carl Specht 0-0 0-0 0, Mike Rzeszut 0-0 0-0 0, Jared Henry 5-10 4-4 15, Kevin Sweeney 1-2 0-0 2, Zach Bourquin 1-2 0-0 2, Alex Keith 0-0 0-0 0, Beau Bourquin 1-1 0-0 2, Kyler Reed 0-0 0-2 0, Clinton Mann 7-13 4-4 20, Brett Hornung 0-0 0-0 0, Keith McCullough 6-11 0-1 14. Totals 21-39 8-11 55.
3-point goals — Emporia 3-21 (Bra. Childs 0-1, Bloomquist 1-8, Euler 1-11, McAnarney 1-1), STA 5-11 (Henry 1-2, Z. Bourquin 0-1, Mann 2-3, McCullough 2-5). Rebounds — Emporia 28 (Bloomquist, Euler 5), STA 35 (Mann 11). Assists — Emporia 8 (Bloomquist 3), STA 11 (Z. Bourquin 4). Turnovers — Emporia 11, STA 16. Total fouls — Emporia 9, STA 13. Fouled out — Emporia: Pierce.
UsayULoveGod (anonymous) says...
What about the other players ! You should feel bad for them also
March 10, 2008 at 5:59 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )