St. Francis Flattens Notre Dame, 71-58 : Lack of Outside Shooting, Ball-Handling and Fans Hurt Knights

St. Francis High beat Notre Dame on Tuesday, 71-58, at Notre Dame, but it wasn’t really that close.

Take, for instance, the halftime score: St. Francis 35, Notre Dame 15. Or the score eight minutes earlier: St. Francis 31, Notre Dame 8. And then there was the fourth-quarter score before St. Francis brought in its reserve players: St. Francis 63, Notre Dame 34.

“St. Francis came out ready to win a war,” Notre Dame Coach Matt Vickers said. “We came out flat.”

Notre Dame watched as St. Francis rolled up eight straight points to start the game. Notre Dame scored on two field goals and two free throws, then took the backseat as St. Francis scored seven more before the end of the first quarter.

That’s no way to play when playoff hopes are virtually on the line. The game makes Notre Dame’s record 2-4. St. Francis is 4-2. A Notre Dame win would have put the Knights in a two-way tie for third place in the Del Rey League at the end of the first round, behind Loyola and undefeated Crespi. Instead, the Knights will meet Loyola on Friday, and the rest of their opponents for that matter, in a must-win situation.

“We really have to make a commitment to beat Loyola,” Vickers said. “We also have to win five of the six games we have left to stay in contention.”

The Knights may also want to start hitting shots from outside the three-foot mark. Notre Dame’s 6-6, 220-pound John Perak, a Times All-Valley lineman in football, scored most of his team-high 16 points by muscling to the hoop. He also had seven rebounds. But outside shooting is what they needed most and got least.

“John got into early foul trouble and that didn’t help,” Vickers said. “And then every time he got the ball there were four guys on him. We needed to be hitting from the outside to draw them back away from him, and we didn’t do that.”

The Knights also didn’t hold onto the ball well, making 14 turnovers.

“Yeah, the biggest thing was the turnovers,” Vickers said. When you add that to 41% shooting in the first half, he said, St. Francis was able to “just open up a big lead.”

St. Francis got 24 points from guard Greg Forrest and 23 points from guard Brian Miller. Forward Ed Lund added 14. Combined, those three scored more points than the entire Notre Dame team. On Friday against St. John Bosco, Forrest had 24 in a 66-50 win.

St. Francis also had the element of surprise on its side.

Said Vickers: “They came and took that early lead and that surprised our players. Then, they just wouldn’t let up.”

Notre Dame, perhaps, wasn’t expecting to be routed by St. Francis. The Knights had beaten St. Francis by 14 points earlier this season. Forrest scored only four points in that contest.

Another element not in the favor of Notre Dame was the absence of its “sixth” man: fans. Because Notre Dame students are concentrating on final exams this week, there were only about six boys, a dozen cheerleaders and about a quarter of the school’s marching band. Opposing players are often intimidated by the boisterous Notre Dame crowds, but it was so quiet at Notre Dame on Tuesday that the only sounds were one St. Francis swish after another.

The win improves St. Francis’ overall mark to 10-7. Notre Dame is 8-10.