St. Francis High basketball sputters down stretch against Renaissance Academy
LA CAÑADA — A return trip to the championship game of the La Cañada Holiday Classic appeared inevitable for the St. Francis High basketball team Friday night.
The Golden Knights looked sharp on offense and defense in building a six-point lead entering the fourth quarter of a pool-play contest against Renaissance Academy. Unfortunately for St. Francis, it encountered some shooting woes in the final quarter to derail its plans to defend the tournament title.
St. Francis mustered just four fourth-quarter points and suffered a 50-44 defeat to Renaissance.
St. Francis dropped to 3-4 and will take part in the tournament’s fifth-place game at 4:30 p.m. Saturday. Renaissance, which finished with 16 fourth-quarter points, improved to 5-2 and will meet Bonita in the title contest at 7:30.
“Our defense was there in giving up just 50 points, but you can’t put up four points in the final quarter against a good team like Renaissance,” said St. Francis co-coach Ray O’Brien, who shares the coaching duties with Jeff Stephens. “For us to have a shot at winning, we need to get between 50-60 points and do it with a balanced attack.
“We’ve got to play as a team, and it’s going to take some time with several new players here. Renaissance is a good team and we’ve got to figure out a way to get over the hump against teams like that.”
St. Francis held a 40-34 edge entering the fourth quarter.
Renaissance, which captured the CIF Southern Section Division V-A championship last season, took the lead for good on a three-pointer by Pavle Roganovic with 2:12 to play in the game. After St. Francis’ Markar Agakanian scored on a layup to give the Golden Knights a 44-43 advantage with 1:14 to go, Roganovic made another three-pointer to give the Wildcats a 46-44 lead with 58 seconds left.
St. Francis, which advanced to the Division III-A title game and the second round of the state tournament last season, missed on its next trip down court. Renaissance then made four free throws in the final 7.9 seconds to seal the victory.
St. Francis senior guard Michael Allen, who finished with 10 points and returned to the lineup for the first time in nearly two weeks after bruising his collarbone, said the Golden Knights couldn’t get on track in the fourth quarter.
“We had some shots that didn’t go, but we have to stick together and learn from this,” said Allen, who made a jump shot to give the Golden Knights a 38-30 advantage with 1:22 remaining in the third quarter. “We’ve just got to do a little better job at closing out games.”
St. Francis held a 26-23 lead at halftime.
The Golden Knights got eight points and eight rebounds from Agakanian, eight points from Kyle Cheung and seven points from Michael Ibarra.
Marquise Mosley finished with 14 points for Renaissance, which received 13 from Roganovic.
