Posted: Feb. 24, 2010 |(0) Comments

With the numbers of upperclassmen Erik Berg, Chase Miller and Cameron Hood suspended over the Shorewood bench on senior and parents' night, the Greyhounds' boys basketball team relied on the foul line and freshmen Austin Mitchell-Malone (16 points), Alex Najieb (14) and Donovan Freeman to pull out a tense 60-53 win over St. Francis on Wednesday.

Shorewood hit its first 18 free throws of the game and its last seven in going 25 of 29 from the charity stripe on a night that the two teams both wore orange warm-ups to commemorate Wauwatosa West coach Mike Landisch, who is battling cancer.

Through a 50/50 raffle and other endeavors, about $500 was raised for the Landsich Fund said a Shorewood school official.

Greyhound coach John Hoch was happy on all fronts.

"It's funny," Hoch said. "This is my fifth year of coaching and by far my youngest team, but it's also my best foul shooting team. We're second in the Woodland (Conference) at 67 percent. Not bad for a team with four freshmen and a sophomore playing prominent roles."

The victory in their regular season closer improved the Greyhounds to 6-12 in Woodland play and 7-15 overall, while the season of frustration continued for the Mariners, as they couldn't take advantage of a career night from senior center Andy Schmidt (25 points) in falling to 0-18 and 0-21, respectively.

Behind 10 straight points to open the game from Schmidt, the Mariners took a 17-13 lead into the second quarter. His putback with 45 seconds remaining in the second gave St. Francis a 27-26 advantage at the half.

But the smaller and quicker Greyhounds broke a 33-all tie midway through the third quarter with a 10-2 run, punctuated by two 3-pointers from sophomore Deion Jackson-Body (9 points) to make it 43-35 with 1:54 remaining.

However, the Mariners fought back scoring the final five points of the stanza, including a 3-pointer from Kellen Fuersteneau (9) to cut it to 43-40 going into the fourth.

An 8-3 run early in the final stanza made it look comfortable for the Greyhounds as they stretched the advantage to 53-45 with 5:35 left.

However, even as the underclassmen were leading the way, Hoch knew that they would act their age at some point in the contest, and they did over the next four minutes as the Mariners held them scoreless and cut the deficit to 53-51 with 1:48 left after Robert Kowalczyk hit a putback of a missed free throw.

"Our inconsistent play speaks to our youth," said Hoch.

 

Malone-Mitchell finally hit one of two free throws with 1:35 remaining to break the drought and after a Mariner turnover, he hit two more with 54 seconds left to make it 56-51.

Freeman (8 points) then closed it out with two sets of charity tosses in the final 50 seconds. Seniors Miller (9) and Hood (4) also contributed to the win.

"Games like this will help us in the future," said Hoch, "and this was important for the three seniors. We've won three of our last four games and if we can keep our act straight like we have of late, we think we can give the seniors at least a few more games in the (WIAA tourney) post-season."