(St. Joe's sophomore Naseer Jackson defends Starpoint's Ian Emerick)

 

After coaching under Mark Simon for seven years, the last five years as the head coach of the St. Joe's junior varsity team, Ben Scaffidi took the head coaching position over at Starpoint in the 2012-13 season after a year behind the Spartan JV bench.  Since that time, Scaffidi has put his stamp on the Spartans basketball program and watched his teams steadily improve each year.  Starpoint entered this season as a favorite to contend for a league title in ECIC II with a squad that starts three juniors.  The Spartans got off to their best start in many years, building an 8-0 record and earning the #9 ranking in the Buffalo News large school poll.  On Wednesday night, Starpoint hosted St. Joe's, marking the first time the two have ever coached against each other.

 

St. Joe's jumped on Starpoint early, withstood the Spartans attempts to rally, and never trailed, as the Marauders earned a 57-45 victory.  The loss is the first this season for Starpoint, while St. Joe's is clearly a team on the rise after a slow start to the season.

 

In the game's opening minutes, the Marauders came out flying and were extremely active defensively.  Both teams were scoreless in the first two minutes, before St. Joe's energy began to translate.  The Marauders got baskets from four different starters over the next two minutes during an 11-0 spurt and had managed to keep the Spartans off the scoreboard for the first portion of the quarter.

 

Ben Walters got Starpoint on the board midway through the opening quarter and ended up scoring 10 points for them in the stanza – the only Spartan to score from the field in the quarter.  A pair of 3-pointers from the Marauders' Antonio Morreale offset two from Walters, and kept the Spartans from erasing the quick start and early lead built by Joe's, as it was 17-12 at the end of one.

 

A four-point play from Walters halfway into the second quarter brought the large crowd of white clad Spartan Rowdies to their feet, as the junior guard's 16th point of the half got his squad within a bucket at 22-20.  On the ensuing possession for Starpoint, Brock Kroening scored inside to bring the Spartans all the way back, tying the game at 22 apiece.  Ed Tabone, who was very active on the boards all evening for the Marauders, scored his team's last four points of the half and St. Joe's went to the locker room at halftime clinging to a one-point lead, 26-25.

 

St. Joe's lead ballooned back to seven points to start the third, thanks in part to two more field goals by Tabone and another from Morreale.  A basket from Kroening and a three-point play by Christian Nodine quickly got the Spartan's deficit back to 34-32 with 3:34 remaining in the third.  But a key 8-0 run late in the quarter (three points each from Morreale and Marcell Davis), allowed the Marauders to take a 44-36 advantage into the fourth quarter.

 

Once in the final quarter, it was the Marauders who looked like the more seasoned group, perhaps a product of the brutal schedule they've played to this point.  St. Joe's didn't allow the Spartans to gain any ground and very methodically closed out the game by continuing to defend, protecting the ball, and keeping the ball in the hands of guard Nick Motley, who scored the final six points for the Marauders.

 

St. Joe's managed to keep Walters off the scoresheet in the second half after a big 16-point effort before the break and allowed just 20 points between the third and forth quarters.

 

"In the first half, our energy was tremendous coming out of the gate, which is what we wanted to do, but maybe spent too much energy early and kind of lost sight of what our assignments were", Simon said.  "At halftime, we talked about making sure we knew where the shooter was – him (Walters) in particular, and did a better job with awareness".

 

Following the game, I asked Simon for his thoughts on facing his friend who he'd worked so closely with.

 

"He's a fantastic coach, a wonderful person, man, & friend, and I'm rooting for him every night but tonight", said Simon.

 

Scaffidi is so highly regarded from his time spent with the Marauders basketball program, that assistant coach Tim Dyrek went out of his way to tell me "make sure you write about what a gentleman Ben is – he's the classiest coach around…I mean it"!

 

Motley finished with 14 points for the Marauders, Tabone scored 12 points, and Morreale added 11 points.

 

Walters led Starpoint with 16 points, Nodine scored 15 points, and Kroening chipped in eight points.

 

-centercourt