Knights weather Stormz

Mt. Carmel School reasserted its mastery over Marianas Baptist Academy in the high school division of the 2009 Coalition of Private Schools on Saipan Basketball League with a 71-55 victory Thursday at the MCS court in Chalan Kanoa.

This was the second time the Knights whipped the Stormz in the regular season, giving Mt. Carmel cagers their seventh win in nine games. The Knights tamed the Stormz in the first round, 64-52. MCS is currenty in second place in the team standings in the boys division, a win behind league-leading Grace Christian Academy (8-1). MBA dropped to a 4-5 slate.

In the girls division, the Lady Knights are on top with an 8-1 mark and were headed for their ninth victory as they led MBA cagebelles by a big margin in the second game played on Thursday, too. Final scores were unavailable at press time.

A balance offense lifted the Knights to their second win over the Stormz, as Mt. Carmel drew double figures from four players. David Kautz fired 15 points, while Rodney Salas, Tim Taguchi, and Sean Sablan chipped in 14 apiece.

Kautz and Sablan nailed six markers each in the first quarter, which ended in a tie, 18-all. Charlie Jo kept the Stormz in the game in the opening period, making 12 of his MBA’s total output.

Jo slowed down in the second, as he notched only four points, while Sablan added six more to put the Knights in the lead at halftime, 33-30.

Mt. Carmel increased the lead to double digits in second half with Salas and Taguchi joining the scoring spree. Salas was scoreless in the first half, while Taguchi was held to a fieldgoal. But they combined for 12 of the Knights’ 18 points in the third to give MCS a 51-41 advantage, entering the final canto.

After keeping pace with the Knights in the first half, MBA started to fall apart in the third, as five of its players who scored in the third were limited to only two points each.

Jo, who had only a fieldgoal in the third period, redeemed himself in the fourth, making 12 markers. But MBA still failed to recover and steal the win, as Jo lacked support from his teammates. Besides Jo, the Stormz had only Seong Bin Lee and Jesse Sablan scoring in the fourth with two points apiece.

In contrast, MCS drew contributions from five players in the payoff canto with Kautz drilling seven after an anemic third-quarter output (two points). Salas and Taguchi added five and four, respectively, while Calvin Yang and Sablan tallied two each.
[B] MCS 71[/B] – Kautz 15, Taguchi 14, Sablan 14, Salas 14, Ha 6, Tang 4, Nicholas 4.