After losing in the MCS Invitational final to their rival Yorkton Regional, the Sacred Heart Saints regrouped and went to Caronport for more early season 4A Boys Basketball action, but once again found struggles in a weekend where they went 1-2, failing to get up for their first game of the weekend before recouping and finding a win on Saturday before a loss in the B Side final.
The Saints lost their opening game of the weekend on Friday against Birch Hills in a game where head coach Garret Karcha pointed out that travel may have been a factor in the Saints first extended road trip of the season, only having to travel to Melville the weekend before prior to the Caronport trip.
Tired legs potentially being a factor in what was an effort that was hampered by the Birch Hills zone offense which gave the Saints turnover and shooting problems as they were forced to the outside.
"A lot of teams in this tournament were going zone on us, which presents difficulties because we are a team that wants to use our size and get into the post, which then led to a lot of turnovers from trying to find our post players through a sea of hands clogging up the inside," mentions Karcha.
Still the Saints ended up getting 16 points out of center David Ojo in the game, one that ended up being just an eight point loss as the Saints held Birch Hills to just 54 points, but their offensive struggles held them to a 54-46 loss that sent them to the B side.
In the B side semifinal the Saints bounced back with 21 points from Ojo, using their full court press to beat hosts Caronport 54-45, but up against Indian Head in the B side final, fatigue played a factor as the Saints saw a game get away from them in a 78-54 loss despite being within four points at halftime.
"We had problems in the final game the weekend before with tired legs so in a B side final we tried to roll out or bench and with fatigue being a factor the game got away from us and snowballed from there in a game that I thought was close for 20 minutes," says Karcha.
