Chaminade Christmas Tourney: Pattonville Advances To Finals

Tuesday was a good news-bad news night for at the Chaminade Christmas Basketball Tournament. The good news was that the No. 2-seed Pirates had even scoring and a strong defense in the second half and defeated No. 3-seed Bayless, 55-35. The bad news was Pattonville advances to play host and their star forward in the finals on Wednesday night.

Chaminade came in undefeated at 9-0. Immediately before the Pirates-Bronchos game, Chaminade soundly beat a good Hazelwood West team, 78-57, in a game that saw Beal score 39-points. "Our entire coaching staff will be staying up late tonight trying to figure out a way to stop them," said Pirate head coach Kelly Thames.

To get to the unenviable position, Pattonville had to beat undefeated Bayless, which
started the night with a 9-0 record. If you were a neutral observer who wandered in the Chaminade gym you might have wanted to root for the underdog. The underdog was undefeated Bayless, who had just six players available for the tournament.

Bayless played well in the first half, trailing 26-20 at the intermission. The second half was another story. Pattonville took away the Bronchos' inside game forcing
them to shoot from the outside. Bayless was just 2-for-13 from 3-point range.

The Pirated helped Bayless in the first half by going 0-for-6 from the free throw line. Things improved in the second half as the Pirates shot 8-of-13 from the line.

It was even scoring that made the difference. Ten Pattonville players scored, led by
senior guard Brad Ridings and senior forward Kevon Johnson, who had 10 points each. Junior Chantel Stanciel added seven and senior guard Dion Scott had six.
Inside play also showed balanced play for the Pirates as 10 players had rebounds, with Johnson leading the team grabbing seven. "Every game it will be a different high scorer with us," said Thames, pointing out that opponents can't key on one or two players.

Bayless was led by senior guard Lamont Davenport who scored a game-high 13 points to go along with three steals and two assists. Freshman forward Edin Mehmedovic played like anything but a freshman. At 6-foot-3, Mehmedovic dominated on the boards, pulling down 14 rebounds, one shy of his season average. He also scored 10 points.

Down by 20-points with two minutes left to play Bronchos coach Pat Triplett was working the referees and calling timeouts as if the game was still in reach. After the game, Triplett said he'd rather lose by a large margin instead of a nail-biter. "When you lose a big game on a buzzer beater it sticks with you forever. Some nights you are the windshield and some nights you are the bug. Tonight we were the bug."

Can the Pirates defeat 9-0 teams two nights in a row? A win over Chaminade would be a huge upset and Thames was admitting after the game that his goal on Wednesday is not to stop Beal. "You can't stop Bradley. He is going to get his points (30 points per game average). We don't want to someone else to step up and beat us. We can't let anyone else have a career night," said Thames.

Thames saw a positive just reaching the Championship Game.

"We have never been in this position in my two years here. This gym will be packed.
The noise will be unbearable. We will playing against one of the best players in the
country. Our players will get to remember Wednesday night for the rest of their lives," said Thames.