On February 21, the Saint Xavier men’s basketball team faced off against Trinity Christian College. The Cougars came into this game on a hot streak and looked to continue their winning streak into the conference tournament.
Before the game started, Coach O’Malley gave a speech for the team’s lone senior: Jack Krieger. He presented Krieger his CCAC Player of the Week award for his fantastic play from the prior week.
He also thanked Krieger for his four outstanding years as a member of the Saint Xavier men’s basketball team.Trinity Christian had the hot hand to start the game, making their first seven shots to jump out to a 15-7 lead.
But the Cougars would answer back with a 17-4 run to take the lead at 24-19 with 10:38 left in the first half. After trading points with each other, and Saint Xavier leading 28-24, the Cougars would go on a 13-6 run to extend their lead to 41-30.
From here, the Cougars and the Trolls would go back and forth with one another for the rest of the first half, resulting in Saint Xavier taking a 44-35 lead into the break.The second half started with a much slower pace than the first half as both teams traded baskets with one another and used up a lot of the shot clock on each possession.
With the score at 50-40, Saint Xavier would go on a game deciding run, scoring 10 out of 14 points, to push their lead to 60-44 with 11:44 left in the game. From this point, the Cougars and the Trolls would battle each other, never allowing the former to get too much farther ahead and never allowing the latter to get too much closer.
Also, the game returned to the slow pace that was prevalent for much of the second half. Ultimately, Saint Xavier would go on to win this game 79-59.
Senior Jack Krieger added another great performance to a career filled with great performances on Senior Day. In the last regular season home game of his collegiate career, Krieger scored a game-high 26 points and added in nine rebounds.
Forward Mitch Uratchko had a great game as well, scoring 12 points and grabbing 10 rebounds to record a double-double. Freshman guards Larry Motuzis and Quinn Niego both scored in double figures with 12 and 11 respectively.
The win was the men’s fifth straight win, making them a dangerous team to face in the upcoming CCAC Men’s Basketball Tournament. The Cougars finished the regular season with an overall record of 19-10 and a conference record of 13-6.
The Cougars hold the #4 seed in the conference tournament and will host a quarterfinals game on February 25, against Purdue-Calumet at 7 PM in the Shannon Center.
John Romando
Senior Sports Editor