Weekend Round-up - Basketball December 9th, 2007

St. Mary's B 27 - Aoba 34

For the first time in recent memory, St. Mary's is fielding two 8th grade basketball teams. On Friday the 8th grade B team traveled to Aoba for their first game of the season. The Titans started off slowly and tentatively, scoring just two points in the first quarter. The rest of the game was an evenly-matched contest, with the final score 27-34 for Aoba.
Both teams agreed to use the extra gym time available to play a fifth quarter in order to get more playing time for both teams. From the opening whistle, the B teamers took charge and outscored Aoba 18-5 in just 8 minutes of play. With more play like that, the B team players will make a good push to be included on the A team.

High scorers for St. Mary's were Justin Nagashima with 13 points, Shikhar Kumar with 8 points, and Ji Yong Seung with 6 points.

The B team also travelled to ASIJ on Saturday for a game against ASIJ's B/C team. WIth St. Mary's being the much stronger squad of the two the team had to hold back somewhat, winning 38-16. High scorers for St. Mary's were Yuya Yoshida with 10 points, followed by Kevin Line with 8 points. Pranav Mehra, Tommy Someya and Armand Bertrand each scored 4 points.

St. Mary's 34 - ASIJ 40

The 8th grade A team was away for a game this past Saturday against arch-rival ASIJ. Turnovers proved costly for the Titans, as they gave up the ball 18 times over the course of the game which ended 40-34 in ASIJ's favor. With fewer turnovers and better finishing, the Titans could have easily won the game.
Yuta kobayashi was voted player-of-the-game by his team-mates for scoring 9 points and for his harassing defense. Tanjib Hasan and Mark Dunphy each had 5 points, while Ken Hor, Taiki Hirata, and Justin Nagashima each had 4 points.
The Titans hope to bounce back Tuesday against Aoba.