5 days Ago
It was an offensive shootout inside of the home gym of the Pope Francis Cardinals. In boys basketball, the Cardinals faced off against the Northampton Blue Devils. Scoring a combined 142 points, Pope Francis rolled to an easy victory over Northampton, winning 83-59 in front of the home crowd.
“It was a good effort,” said Pope Francis head coach Justin Dalessio. “A little bit tired, just because it’s our third game in seven days. I knew we’d be tested tonight.
I would’ve been a little happier if we played better defense and rebounded better. Overall, for our third game in seven days, it was a tough week and I’ll take it.” With all the points in the world being scored, both teams had several players who put together very strong performances.
The first one being Cardinals senior Ryan Vedovelli. Vedovelli started out the game hot, draining a pair of two’s before hitting a pair of three’s to give him 10 points in the first quarter. Along with seven in the second quarter and another seven in the second half, Vedovelli ended the game with a 24 points.
Junior Sam Bringham also had a field day on the court, scoring 10 in the first half with eight in the first quarter. Dropping another 11 points in the third, he ended the game with 26 after sinking another pair of twos and a free throw in the fourth quarter. “[Vedovelli] is a great all around dominant athlete.
He’s tough as nails, he understands what we need to do [and] he’s been leading this year which is really good,” Dalessio said. “[Brigham] is really good at being shifty and drawing contact.” Brigham also got to the line nine times as well, making all of his attempts.
“[It’s] not only drawing fouls, but when he gets to the foul line he’s been shooting it at a high percentage,” Dalessio said. “Sam is a great addition to our team. He’s good off the dribble and he’s great at catch and shoot.
” For Northampton, it was Naihmond Peters-Wolfe who had himself a game, with 18 across all four quarters. While Eli Reid also had 10 and Brayden Nichols-Staples also had 15, it wasn’t enough to overcome the elite offensive attack that the Cardinals brought this evening. “We knew [Peters-Wolfe] was a volume shooter,” Dalessio said.
“He’s athletic and he kind of leads that team. We were very aware of him and concerned with him, so we tried to limit his touches as much as possible. [We] just tried to take that away first and then try and worry about hitting the glass.
” Kicking off the game, Vedovelli got straight to work, dropping his 10 points rather quickly. The Blue Devils kept the score with one point as Northampton answered quickly to Vedovelli’s production. Now 11-10, Pope Francis pulled ahead, as the Cardinals went on a 13-2 run to end the quarter, doubling the score of the Blue Devils, 24-12.
The second quarter was almost equally as dominant for the Cardinals. While the Blue Devils scored 13 points and hit more 3-pointers than the Cardinals, Pope Francis maintained the lead with numerous trips to the free-throw line and also a lot of points within the arc finding the net. Pope Francis outscored Northampton 21-13 in the second, as Max Fergus dropped all of his seven points he scored.
To this point, the Cardinals have also been playing very team-friendly basketball, passing the ball around the floor and keeping Northampton off balance. This created a variety of different shots for Pope Francis to take, and the Cardinals went into the half up 45-25. Continuing into the third, Pope Francis continued to put the pedal to the medal and didn’t look back, even with Peters-Wolfe having his highest scoring quarter highlighted with a dunk that sent the Blue Devils bench into pandemonium.
However, it wasn’t enough to combat the 11-point third quarter from Bringham. Scoring 11 of the 20 Cardinal points in the quarter, he and Vedovelli scored 15 of the 20 points with Jackson Mauer draining a three, as well as Sam Meyfield getting another two pointer. Northampton still couldn’t stop the Cardinals.
While Northampton wasn’t able to mount the comeback, they did improve every quarter, progressively scoring more and more points in each quarter. They tied Pope Francis in the fourth, as Reid had eight of his 10 points in the fourth, leading the way for Northampton. However, the continued and overall steady attack from the Cardinals was too much for the Blue Devils to comeback from, as they fell to 1-1 while Pope Francis climbed to 3-0.
The Cardinals face Putnam on the road in their next game on Dec. 23 at 7:30 p.m.
, while Northampton hosts Putnam on Dec. 18 at 7:30 p.m.
.
