This Time, the Gaels Prevail

The last time the St. Mary’s College basketball team wandered into the Sports Center to meet the University of San Diego, the West Coast Athletic Conference title was on the line.

USD won that game a year ago and went on to the NCAA Tournament. St. Mary’s went home for the spring.

The teams got together again on Thursday night, and the Gaels won, 75-65, in front of 1,844 fans.

“The win means a lot to us,” said St. Mary’s forward Brian Shaw, who scored a game-high 16 points before fouling out. “They beat us for the championship and we had that in mind. That was the main motivating factor.”

St. Mary’s relentless press was a major factor in its third WCAC win in four tries. The press forced USD to turn the ball over 18 times, most of those coming in the second half. Meanwhile, the Gaels had just six turnovers.

“We handle the press 20 times in a row, then we turn it over,” Torero Coach Hank Egan said. “It was the same press. I don’t understand it.”

USD guard Kiki Jackson, who matched teammate Chris Carr’s 13 points, was baffled himself.

“We didn’t execute well,” he said. “We were executing well early in the game, then broke down. It was our carelessness. We were very careless with the ball.”

The Gaels knew what to do when they had the ball--ram it through the basket. After a pair of free throws by Anthony Reuss gave USD a 51-49 lead with 9:24 left, St. Mary’s came back with three straight dunks to go up by four.

First it was David Cooke jamming one after a steal. Ken Jones followed with a slam and, after another turnover, and Eric Cooks got the third dunk. St. Mary’s 55, USD 51 with 8:07 left. The Gaels never trailed again.

“That was good,” Shaw said about the dunks. “They quieted down the crowd and got us pumped up.”

“We’re a small team and we give up height to every team we play. So instead of trying to outmuscle ‘em, we use our quickness.”

Early on, it appeared that formula wouldn’t work as the Toreros jumped out to an early 10-4 lead.

But St. Mary’s erased that deficit and tied the game at 15 on a three-point play by Cooke. Less than three minutes later, a jumper by Shaw and a pair of free throws by Paul Pickett put the Gaels on top, 22-17, with 7:52 left in the half.

Thanks to some long-range bombing by Jackson, USD was down by only two, 34-32, at the half.

Jackson scored the Toreros’ last seven points of the half, to wind up with 11 in the first 20 minutes. However, Jackson wasn’t able to maintain that pace, managing just a basket in the second half.

The loss dropped USD to 1-3 in the WCAC and 12-7 overall. St. Mary’s improved to 3-1 and 11-8.

“It was an important game,” Egan said. “The way we’re playing, they’re all important. If we don’t go out an execute, we’re gonna be in trouble.”

In Jackson’s mind, the Toreros’ chances of retaining the WCAC crown haven’t been expunged--at least not yet.

“We just have to keep our heads up, and hope good things happen,” he said. “We’re not out of it yet. We want to go .500 in the first round and do better in the second.

“But we really needed this game.”