Not sure why...I only clicked on a link of the original story posted above.....here it is anyway:
By Steve Soucie
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ST. ANNE — Composure is a tough thing to measure.
But there was no question which team had composure in spades and which team had none during Tuesday’s nonconfererence matchup between the Dwight Township High School and St. Anne Community High School boys’ basketball teams.
St. Anne was whistled for 33 fouls, including seven technicals, as it came completely unglued in the second half in a 64-51 loss to the considerably more poised Trojans.
The Cardinals had won seven games in a row behind a combination of 3-point sharpshooting and tenacious interior play.
But neither were present on Tuesday as the Cardinals missed their first 12 3-point attempts and also struggled to contain Dwight’s sophomore center, Jens Kennedy.
As a result, Dwight (9-3) was able to stay in a zone defense and packed the lane with defenders. And while the Trojans weren’t necessarily proficient on offense, they still held a 20-16 lead at the break.
In an attempt to energize itself, St. Anne tried to amp up its defensive intensity, but the aggressive defensive style didn’t sit well with the officials.
As a result, St. Anne (7-4) quickly found itself with a truckload of fouls and Dwight had a boatload of free-throw attempts. Tempers then flared with St. Anne’s bench getting whistled for one bench technical foul, then after a questionable foul call on the Cardinals, assistant coach Todd Sirois was whistled for a pair of technicals and was ejected from the game.
Through it all, Dwight continued to chug along. Helped by the splendid free-throw shooting of Cal Vigna, who hit 21 of his 24 attempts, Dwight continued to extend its lead.
In the midst of the technical flurry, Dwight extended a four-point lead to 15 in seemingly a matter of seconds.
“It certainly wasn’t how we planned it all,” Dwight coach Mark Porter said. “I’ll say this: When we got the big lead over the course of the game, I was proud of our kids. Our kids got together on the floor and kept their composure. With the young team that we have, that was nice to see. We gathered ourselves and we were able to knock down some free throws. We’re just glad we were able to come in here and get a win over a quality team like St. Anne.”
But that wasn’t the end of the flared tempers. Later, a St. Anne player was whistled for a technical foul for slamming the basketball down in frustration after what he believed was a bad foul call. Then St. Anne's Brandon Brewer was tossed from the game after receiving a double technical after his actions were deemed too physical on a loose-ball foul.
All in all, Dwight shot 40 free throws while St. Anne had just four free-throw attempts.
“This was a lesson in composure for us tonight and we failed it,” St. Anne coach Rick Schoon said. “We had a lot of things not go our way tonight. We did not come out with the effort that we had to, either. We are an aggressive team defensively and we did a poor job of adjusting to the way the game was called. Hopefully, it will be a situation that we will learn from and correct.”
Despite the frequent whistles, St. Anne did manage to rally a bit. Back-to-back baskets by Javonta Davis (21 points) allowed St. Anne to close within 57-47.
But wisely, Dwight placed the ball largely in the hands of Vigna, who drained nine of his 10 free throws in the fourth quarter. He finished with a game-high 24 points despite scoring just one field goal.
Thu Jan 15, 2009, 11:22am
But, as long as it's restrained and balanced, that IS his job, we'll be told. (In all fairness, "splashed" is probably a bit strong to describe how the officials were named since it was well into the article [but I know what you mean]. Everyone has a different tolerance level to media coverage.)
That's my whistle -- and I'm sticking to it!
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