Loyola outruns BP boys

Published 12:11 am Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The Awesome Blossoms boys’ basketball team lead at half-time by three but went down to their third defeat of the season 60-57 at Mankato Loyola Tuesday. 

The trip didn’t fair as well as the Blossoms (13 -3 overall, 6-2 Gopher Conference) had hoped when they faced an opponent that was trailing them in the Gopher Conference standings.

 Matt Zellmer and sophomore Cooper Nelson had 28 of Blooming’s 30 points in the first half as most of the other Blossom shooters were not able to get their shots to drop. 

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“We missed shots tonight,” Blossoms’ head coach Jon Bruns said. “Shots that we usually make.”

The Blossoms’ shooting percentage wasn’t the only thing that was hurting as senior starter Israel Clark went down in the second half with what appeared to be a hip injury.

“That really hurt losing Israel tonight,” coach Bruns said.

Clark’s absence was felt in the final minutes as the Blossoms held a six point lead with just under four minutes to play but saw that evaporate quickly as the Crusaders went on a 11-point-run.

With BP now trailing by five and struggling to find a handle on the ball, senior Josh Toquam finally broke the Blossoms’ shooting silence by hitting a deep three point shot and breatheing life back into his team.

Loyola’s next possesion put them on the free throw line as Blooming went right for the foul to stop the clock to hopefully get the ball back into their hands with little or no damage done.

Loyola’s shooter went to the line and missed the one for one shot and again it was Toquam to the rescue with what appeared to be the rebound with 36 seconds to go in the game but as he went to haul the ball in, a Loyola opponent came in and knocked the ball out of bounds, but the call went against them giving the ball back to the Crusaders.

The Crusaders went to the line again to shot two more free throws and making one, now put them up by three with under 20 seconds to play.

As the Blossoms now needed a three pointer to drop to send the game into overtime but it was not to be, even with three tries from behind the arc as Toquam got the first one off and the next two were put up by junior back up guard Robert Hofius.

The Mankato Loyola Crusaders now sit in second place with a 8-2 record as the Blossoms now fall to 6-2.

BP scoring: Matt Zellmer 26, Cooper Nelson 14, Josh Toquam 11, Josh Johnson 4, Israel Clark 2

Loyola scoring: Trieu Ho 17, Jackson Bartlett 13, Jake Wesely 10, Joe Fink 6, Roby Tanoff 8, Toby Turbes 4, Sage Worf 4, Mack Douglas 2