South Side Sinks Chaminade Basketball 71-64

It’s a sad state that streaks have to end.

The Lakers. Unitias. Ripkin. DiMaggio.

All had their runs ended by someone somewhere.

Chaminade forward Patrick Farrell knows the feeling – his double-double streak ended Wednesday with a 71-64 loss to South Side.

The senior had been racking up the totals in rebounds, turning them out in every one of the five games this season the Flyers had played, with only one loss to show for their efforts, that a 62-59 loss to Regis at home.

But when you get into any sort of a groove, someone’s bound to notice.

“They were jumping a lot in my screens because I guess all week they went over what I like to do and they were forcing me outside and I really didn’t have my shot in the first half,” the 6’4” senior said. “I found it a little bit at the end but it was too late.”

The truth the Cyclones (3-0) had been gunning for Farrell along with guard John Gallego from well before tipoff.

“We felt that if we could get the points that he gets within 3 feet away out of him, he won’t have as much of an impact as he normally would,” South Side coach Jerry D’Angelo said. “Our two keys we had in the game were to really make Gallego work as hard as he possibly can and Farrell, trying to make sure he got nothing easy, no offense or rebound put-backs.”

South Side limited the Flyers’ big man to just 19 points, with 3 rebounds in the second half while Ryan Spadaford and Darren Nickelson ran ragged on the court, notching up 24 and 11 points, respectively.

Chaminade head coach James Quinn deflected any notion that Chaminade’s Achilles is when Farrell is neutralized in the paint, saying that “defensively we played terrible and the culmination of defense with no box outs. We just didn’t play well, that’s all.”

While the Flyers allowed South Side to get as many as 13 points out in front at one point, they had managed to whittle it down and briefly tie it in the third before letting their opponents pull away again for good.

“I think we have good depth. We thought that was our advantage just to really try to wear them (out) and I think we caught a spurt in the third quarter,” D’Angelo said. “We really tried not to let it up as much as we can.”

Now it will be Farrell’s turn to make adjustments.

“I just got to run off screens differently, vary my game a little bit,” Farrell said, admitting a bitter taste of having to start from scratch again.

After the 56-game hitting streak ended, DiMaggio rattled off another starting the next day, this time lasting 17 games.

He had probably felt the same way.