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Sports

Chaminade Basketball Loses 52-44 to St. Peter's in Christmas Challenge

Flyers fell behind early and could not climb back Sunday afternoon.

A day after putting up , the varsity basketball team came out flat Sunday afternoon in the Oceanside Christopher Christmas Challenge, losing to St. Peter's High School 52-44.

After a monster game less than 24 hours before, Chaminade's Rich Zoller was held in check by the Eagles, only tallying 6 points in the game.

Chaminade opened the contest like they were going to continue Saturday's all-around effort, as forward Christopher Kustera opened the scoring with a put-back, while James McCaffrey converted a nice drive to the basket for two of his team-high 12 points.

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The 4-0 lead would be the biggest the Flyers had all day, as St. Peter's dug in and found their offense. Kevin Driscoll scored first for the Eagles, draining a three.

After a Chaminade miss, St. Peter's appeared to lose control of the ball as it bounced towards the sideline at midcourt. But Chaminade guard Matt Gonyon, determined to get the ball, jumped in the air for the save, getting it to Kevin Sheehy who drove to the basket and scored two of his 8 points. 

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St. Peter's came back and went on a 7-0 run to push their lead to 14-10.

But Kustera, who had 6 points, made sure to stop the Eagles run. Kustera converted a hoop underneath the basket on one possession, and then the next time down grabbed an offensive rebound off a missed Sheehy shot and put that back in, tying the game at 10-10.

The second quarter started off as a track meet, as the teams combined to score on five of the first six possessions. But after a jumper by Eagles guard Vernon Maddox stretched the Eagles lead to 18-12, shots quit falling for both teams.

Down 12-20, forward Lucas Colombo nailed a three on a pass from fellow forward Patrick Farrell to cut the lead to 15-20. But the Flyer's could not close the gap any more in the period, as St. Peter's Stefan Bock scored on a floater to push the lead back to seven. McCaffrey scored the last basket of the period, cutting the deficit back down to five points at 22-17.

Scoring opened up in the third quarter, as Chaminade closed the deficit to one point after McCaffrey nailed a three in the corner off of a pass from Sheehy, bringing the score to 22-23.

St. Peter's netted a three and a jumper to push the lead back to six before McCaffrey nailed another three and then added a fast break layup to bring the score to 27-28.

After a St. Peter's field goal, Chaminade finally made a move to get the lead back. Sheehy scored on two straight possessions to give Chaminade a 31-30 lead. Unfortunately, the lead was the last of the day for Chaminade. St. Peter's rattled off six points to end the quarter, including a last second floater by Mike Sanborn with two seconds on the clock, to go into the fourth with a 36-31 lead.

Chaminade opened the fourth with another three, this one by Farrell, to cut the difference to two, but St. Peter's came back and scored on the next drive. The Flyers was able to close the gap to two points after guard John Gallego converted on two free throws to bring the score to 38-40.

But much like the rest of the day, Chaminade could not find a way to take the lead over. The Eagles converted on two free throws by Bock, and then Bock found teammate Andrew Cannon for a jumper to push the lead back out to 38-44. After two more free throws by Cannon, Chaminade fell behind 38-46.

Chaminade's last attempt came when McCaffrey stole the ball from St. Peter's, and in mid-air connected with Gonyon who converted the layup, bringing the score to 42-46. The Eagle's closed out the game by making six of 10 free throws.

1 2 3 4 F St. Peter's 12 10 14 16 52 Chaminade 10 7 14 13 44
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