St. Francis CYO basketball opens season

SFA H.S. JV
St. Francis 52
St. Dot’s A 37
The St. Francis of Assisi (SFA) ninth and 10th graders opened the 2011 -2012 season with an impressive win over St. Dot’s A team.
Ben Clausen and Colin Ringwalt led the way for the green and gold with 11 points apiece. Kevin McKnight chipped in with eight and Andrew Peranteau tallied seven.
The Bruins jumped out to a 12-5 first-quarter lead, and they expanded it to 26-13 by the half, never being threatened in this game by their rivals from Township Line.
St. Francis 59
OLPH 30
It was just one of those nights as the SFA JV Bruins improved their record to 2 and 0 with a decisive 29-point win over OLPH.
Blistering out to a 15-5 first-quarter lead, SFA rolled to an easy win in this contest. Coach Milt Hedrick commented on the great play of Andrew Peranteau who “was outstanding and is really starting to understand his game.” Peranteau tallied six points with 10 assists and eight rebounds.
The SFA scoring was led by Kevin McKnight with 12, followed by Ben Clausen and Joe Travagline with eight apiece.
Holy Cross 39
St. Francis 38
It was a real barnburner at the St. Francis gym as the hosts fell to their cross-town rivals from Holy Cross by a point.
Besides the kids from both squads giving their all on the court, this game featured two former players as coaches for each team who should be well remembered by Springfield SFA-Holy Cross fans. Young Zach Myers is coaching Holy Cross, and Alex Yuravage is an assistant to long-time St. Francis head-man Milt Hedrick.
This was a tough loss for the green and gold. Holy Cross led throughout, by as much as 12 points, but St. Francis was diligent, coming to within the last shot of winning the game.
The Bruin’s Ben Clausen led all scorers with 17 points, and he also tallied eight rebounds against the tough, athletic Holy Cross squad. Hard-nosed SFA point-guard Kevin George also was outstanding, tallying 10 points for the Bruins.
SFA H.S. Varsity
SFA 59
Holy Cross 36
SFA opened its 2011-2012 campaign with a solid win at home against Holy Cross. According to Coach Milt Hedrick, this game was “over early” as the green and gold scurried out to a 41-10 halftime lead and never looked back.
Eight different players tallied points for SFA in, led by Matt Reichert with 18. Jeff Peranteau and Mike Dougherty tallied 12 apiece, and Nick Santana had eight. Eric Pollock and John Ciurlino helped control the boards with seven and six rebounds, respectively.
St. Dot’s A 47
SFA 39
The Varsity Bruins started off slowly and never fully recovered before falling to St. Dot’s.
In spite of the fact that this team has had very little time to practice as a team, Coach Hedrick sees great potential for this squad once “they get their basketball legs.”
Jeff Peranteau turned in another outstanding game for the Bruins, tallying 14 points, six rebounds and eight assists.
Another key player was Eric Pollock with three points and five boards. John Ciurlino and Nick Cahill turned in five apiece. John Oakley had six and Pat O’Connell had three.