12/21/2021
BY JACK BULLOCK
WALTONVILLE - For the Christopher Bearcats a trip into Jefferson County to take on rival Waltonville on Tuesday night must have seemed more like a 'chore' than a pleasurable outing.

Having completed finals earlier in the day it looked like some 'rust' had developed since their most recent win last Friday.

Coach Eric Stallman's club, however, persevered on a night where the 'A-Game' couldn't be found.

Doing just enough in pretty much every category, the Bearcats remained undefeated heading into the Christmas break with a 55-40 win.

Christopher is now 7-0 and the top-seed at next week's Sesser-Valier Holiday Tournament, the 40th annual event.

Getting enough shots to fall from the outside and inside while keeping the host Spartans at bey on the defensive end, Christopher took an early lead and never let it go.

“We didn't shoot it very well and the kids had finals today and you could say a million different things but we just didn't have much rhythm, no JV game was a bit weird, but that shouldn't matter. We should have played better,” said Coach Stallman. “We should have made more shots. It was a 15-point win on the first day of Christmas break and we'll take it.”

Playing against a Waltonville zone, the Bearcats hit seven 3-pointers in the game.

In the paint the Bearcats also went to work getting 10-points each from 6-5 senior Peyton Mazur and 5-11 senior Mason Goins.

The two combined to make things difficult on the Spartans defense, which opened up things outside for senior guard Colin Sveda and sophomore forward Scout Hudgens.

The two long range shooters hit three 3-pointers each with Sveda ending up with 11-points and Hudgens nine.

Four other Christopher players got involved on scoring offense with junior Trey Cole (five), junior Brett Janello (four) putting in points while Coach Stallman got three-points each from freshman Carson Hobbs and senior Cole Freeman.

Coach Anthony Lowery's Spartans played pretty well, all things considered, but couldn't make enough of a dent in the Bearcats' lead to make things interesting.

It has been a rough beginning for this program in 2021-22 but the effort was there on Tuesday night at home.

Two players; senior Quinn Gajewski and sophomore Makabe Devor tossed in 12-points and 10-points for Waltonville.

Nate Ragland, a 5-10 senior, added nine-points to the arsenal.

Waltonville saw it's mark slip to 1-6 overall.

“When you play against great teams they know how to kill the runs you get. Coach Stallman does a great job,” said Coach Lowery. “I probably should have subbed more and maybe used more timeouts here and there to give the kids a break.”

Christopher outscored the hosts in the opening quarter with a pair of scoring runs.

Sveda nailed down two of his 3-pointers in the opening minutes while Mazur scored on an offensive rebound for a 10-3 lead.

Goins added a score inside and teammate Brett Janello hit a shot from the left corner to close the first quarter scoring at 16-6.

The Spartans fell behind as they connected on just 2-of-12 shots in the opening frame and only got one offensive rebound as Christopher controlled the boards.

Waltonville managed to get better offensively in the second quarter but they were only able to get within nine-points at the end of the half.

Due in part to Hudgens (two 3-pointers in the second quarter) and another long range bomb by freshman reserve guard Carson Hobbs, the Bearcats took their largest lead of the first half at 30-16 with 1:31 left.

Kretz scored all five of his points (two free throws and a 3-pointer) in the final minute of the half as the Spartans were down 30-21 at the break.

It was Waltonville's best offensive quarter as they were 5-of-7 from the floor and hit all three of their 3-point attempts but still trailed by nine at the break.

The Spartans dug into the lead a couple of times in the third quarter, getting to within six-points two different times only to have Christopher answer.

Gajewski scored twice in the third quarter and his 3-pointer from near the top of the arc made it 35-29 Bearcats with 3:28 left.

However Mazur got a pair of shots to fall in the lane; one on a rebound and another on an interior pass from Goins for a 40-29 lead.

“We shot a lot of open shots tonight (against the zone) and we didn't make a lot of them but it was enough tonight,” said Coach Stallman. “We changed some things at halftime and we were able to score a bit better inside against their zone in the second half.”

Devor closed his scoring on the night with a drive to the basket as the host once again were down nine at the end of a quarter.

A 10-1 run to begin the fourth for the Bearcats removed the drama.

Hudgens hit another 3-pointer, a mid-range shot by Sveda and a Trey Cole transition score got things churning for the visitors before Mazur got loose again in the lane for a basket and a 50-32 advantage.

Sveda's final 3-pointer and a Goins bucket in the paint closed the scoring for Coach Stallman's team before the mentor went to his bench for the final minutes with his team up 55-36.

Reynolds added a late drive to the basket for points and two free throws by Gajewski ended the scoring.

“They (Waltonville) played really hard tonight and Gajewski had a really nice game for them,” said Coach Stallman.

Waltonville ended up 13-of-42 from the floor overall, 6-of-17 from the arc while the Bearcats were 22-of-50, and hit just a 7-of-24 from long range.

But a rebounding edge (33-23) was significant and the defensive effort kept the Spartans from the kind of scoring run needed to get in front.

Both teams took pretty good care of the ball with Waltonville committing just eight-turnovers compared to nine by the Bearcats.

The two teams are off until Monday. December 27th as they both participate at the SVHT.

Christopher has a 10:30 am date with Century while Waltonville will play number seven-seed Marissa/Coulterville at 5 pm in the 16-team bracketed event that runs four days through Thursday.

“The main thing is they (Christopher) are a very good basketball team. But we have kids that have been sick, it's that time of year with things, and we have three guys injured (Lucas Lynch, Tryton Fassett and Gavin Dressler) who didn't play. For us to compete the way we did showed a lot of heart and I'm proud of the guys,” said Coach Lowery. “We competed for four quarters with one of the best teams in the state so I'm really proud of that.”

Christopher (55) – Janello 2 0 0-1 4, Sveda 1 3 0-0 11, Hobbs 0 1 0-0 3, Traiteur 0 0 0-0 0, Sherwin 0 0 0-0 0, Cole 2 0 1-2 5, Freeman 1 0 1-1 3, Hudgens 0 3 0-0 9, Goins 4 0 2-4 10, Mazur 5 0 0-2 10.
2FG-15, 3FG-7, FT-4-10, PF-10.
Waltonville (40) – Reynolds 2 0 0-0 4, Gajewski 2 2 2-2 12, Kretz 0 1 2-2 5, Devor 2 2 0-0 10, Ragland 1 1 4-10 9, Kubiak 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-7, 3FG-6, FT-8-15, PF-13.
Fouled Out – None.
Technical Fouls – None.