By Gaylen Duskey
realfang@citlink.net
Clarksburg - It's not often you can lose two games and feel encouraged by it.
But this year at the Notre Dame Classic that's exactly what happened for the Calhoun basketball team.
The Red Devils lost two close games in the tournament, yet, came away with a good feeling. Or, at least, a feeling of optimism.
Monday night Calhoun fell to host school Clarksburg Notre Dame by a 55-51 count. Tuesday it lost to Williamstown in the consolation game by a 75-71 score.
Calhoun's losses in both game was attributable to the officiating: Indirectly in one and directly in the other.
Monday night the officials allowed team teams to play very physical basketball. That hurt Calhoun. The reason is you can be a lot more physical with a 6-9 center such as Notre Dame's Caesar Goodman than you can with 6-3 players.
Goodman, the Fighting Irish's huge senior center, had a team high 18 points and 11 rebounds. But it was his free throw with about six seconds remaining that finally sealed the deal by putting the game out of reach changing a three-point lead to four. He made the free throw after flattening Calhoun's Zach Moore when he drove the lane seconds before that. No call was made but that was just part of the physical play the referees allowed.
Calhoun started the game very slowly falling behind 13-0 before righting the ship by outscoring the Irish by nine the rest of the way.
Moore led Calhoun with 19 points and 10 rebounds. He was backed by Chuck Kendall with 14. Kyle Keesler and Anthony Richards added five each while Cai Clothier added four and Justin Gerwig and Bronson Clark two each.
Tuesday's loss Tuesday was directly attributable to the officiating as Williamstown shot 34 free throws to Calhoun's 12.
The Red Devils never got into a one-and-one foul shooting situation (when a team gets seven fouls in a half it creates and one-and-one situation), which is extremely rare. Williamstown, meanwhile, was on the double bonus in both halves (which is when a team gets 10 or more fouls in a half and shoots two free throws with each foul), which is also rather rare.
Overall, Calhoun was called for 26 fouls to Williamstown's 10.
Calhoun jumped out to a quick lead as the Yellowjackets' coach benched three senior starters for being late for the team chartered bus. He "unbenched" the three when Calhoun jumped to a 7-3 lead threatening to put the 'Jackets into a big hole.
Williamstown did own an 11-10 lead at the end of the first period as the game turned into a see-saw affair which it remained until the final buzzer.
Despite the fouls -- Calhoun lost one player (Keesler) to fouls and had several others in deep foul trouble -- the game never varied much as Calhoun went hammer-and-tong with the 4-1 'Jackets.
Using the foul line to its advantage Williamstown forged ahead late in the fourth period despite the best efforts of the Red Devils, who shot only one free throw in the entire period and that came on a three-point play by Gerwig.
Gerwig, a 6-3 senior, led Calhoun with 25 points while adding four rebounds. Moore chipped in with an impressive game with 19 points, 14 rebounds and six assists. Keesler and Kendall added nine points apiece while Kendall also chipped in with six rebounds as the Red Devils controlled the boards by a 2-1 margin (34-17). Tyler Bennett added three points while Clark, Richards and Clothier had two apiece. Clark's most impressive work was his defensive effort on Williamstown's three-point ace Michael Badgely, holding the diminutive 'Jacket to six points. Daniel Sims and Randy Fluharty both played crucial fourth-quarter minutes but did not score.
Luke Offenberger led Williamstown with 23 while Andrew Badgely had 15, Case Edgar 13 and Daniel Huggins 12.
There was no junior varsity game.
Calhoun, 1-3, returns to action early next year entertaining St. Marys Monday night (Jan. 4, 2010) in a key Little Kanawha Conference match up.
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