Men’s Basketball Falls Short in Two Landmark Contests, Eliminated from Playoffs

Sean Robinson, Staff
February 17, 2012
Filed under Sports

This past week the Catholic University men’s basketball team lost two key road games versus Juniata College and Susquehanna University. The two losses brought the Cardinals to a three-game losing streak. The losses eliminate Catholic from the playoffs and drop the Cardinals into a fifth-place tie in the Landmark Conference with Merchant Marine Academy. Both Catholic and Merchant Marine have 6-7 records among Landmark Conference opponents. Overall, the Cardinals are 16-8.

At Juniata on February 10th, the Cardinals were in a back-and-forth first half that left them down two going into half time. To start off the second half, Catholic came out hot taking an early seven point lead with 12 minutes remaining.

Juniata would tie the game at 55 with 6:41 remaining, and back-and-forth scoring would continue until 2:27 when Juniata would go on a hot streak and break the tie. They would go on a 9-1 run, and Catholic would not score again until a Shawn Holmes three pointer with 17 seconds remaining. Juniata would make 2-3 foul shots while the Cardinals came up with no field goals to finalize the score 76-68.

Catholic shot 56% from the field, an improvement from their past few games. Against Merchant Marine, the Cardinals shot 30.3 percent in the first half and 34.5 percent in the second half. The problem with the Cardinals would be their 20 turnovers and 16 points scored off of them. The Cardinals only forced eight turnovers with seven points scored off of them.

Forward Chris Kearny had one of his best games of the season scoring 21 points on 8-11 shooting from the field, 5-5 shooting from the line, seven rebounds, and three blocked shots. Guard Shawn Holmes also played one of his better games scoring 20 points on 8-11 shooting from the field, 4-6 from the three point arch, and two assists in 35 minutes. Kearney and Holmes have been major team leaders this season. Both have led in scoring, averaging double figures this season.

Forward Darrell Carroll would add eight points and seven rebounds while Billy Donovan and Nate Koenig would score seven points each.

The following day at Susquehanna University, the Cardinals once again found themselves in a close first half down 39-35 at halftime. Five minutes into the second half, the game was tied 44-44 when Susquehanna would take the lead, and go on a run that the Cardinals were unable to keep up with. With 1:09 left the lead was cut to three following a lay-up, and three pointer by Guard Steve Limberiou. Susquehanna would make 9-11 foul shots as the Cardinals fouled to save time and possessions, but they were unable to make their shots, resulting in an 80-71 loss.

Shawn Holmes led all Catholic scorers with 17 points on 6-17 shooting from the field, five rebounds, four assists, and two steals. Chris Kearny scored 15 points, and pulled in nine rebounds while Steve Limberiou also scored 15, went 6-6 from the line, and had five rebounds in 22 minutes.

The Cardinals’ final game is at Goucher College on Saturday, February 18th at 7:30 pm. While this game will not help the Cardinals into the post season as they were eliminated with the loss to Susquehanna, the game will mark the final game for seniors Darrell Carroll and Andy Roell, who have been key contributors to the team for the past four years.

Darrell Carroll averaged 8.7 points a game 4.5 rebounds in 26.3 minutes per game this season. Andy Roell averaged 3.5 points a game and shot .403 from the field as a key player off the bench.