VALLEY CENTRAL – Walking off the court for the final time in the final minutes of Lourdes’ 81-64 loss to Kingston in the Section 9 Class AAA championship on Saturday morning, a teary-eyed Kaden King approached head coach Jim Santoro at the scorers table.
The two embraced, sharing a long-lasting hug that exemplified everything about the bond created inside the program. No matter the result, the Warriors program is a family.
“The tears really aren’t because we lost. It’s because I know that these guys are going on to bigger-and-better things and leaving me behind,” Santoro said with tears filling his eyes when speaking about his seniors. “It’s really the emotion of it. These kids have been with you so long, and you know them. I’m their coach, but I’m a lot more than that. I’m a mentor, a second father, a coach and a friend…”
Senior Bleck Ngon led all players for the Warriors with 29 in his final game. Aaron Watson added 10 while King tallied eight.
Pretty early on, it became evident on Saturday morning that Lourdes was up against a buzzsaw. One that’s been the sharpest in all of New York State this whole season.
The domination was from the opening second. Kingston instantly secured a double-digit lead in the first three minutes before continuing to pummel away. The Warriors had ample good looks at the hoop, but absolutely nothing would fall. At first, it was frustrating. Eventually, it became jaw-dropping.
The 30-point first half margin is a historic one, a complete outlier to what any championship bout could and should be. Usually, there’s some clues or indications of why a game went wrong. Why a completely head-scratching result like this came to be is just simply a mystery.
“Everything went wrong,” Santoro bluntly said. “They shot the lights out of the ball, and we had 20 turnovers… we had no offense in the first half.”
The Tigers ultimately scored the first 23 points of the night. Lourdes wasn’t even able to get a single point on the board until there was just one minute left in the opening frame. By the middle of the second quarter, Kingston’s lead ballooned up to a 35-3 margin at one point.
Max Sheth highlighted the Tigers’ scoring with 29 on the day. Jack Purvis nailed six 3-pointers for his 18 total points while John Pierrre-Lewis added 16.
Facing a 30-point deficit in the halftime break, things were obviously looking incredibly bleak for the Warriors. Still refusing to quit in the moment, eventually the tone had to change. The crew had to collectively know that it was heading toward the final moments as a group. What became important changed. It was about being together.
“That’s a characteristic of every team that we’ve had, and it was no different with this team,” Santoro said, referring to the comeback effort that Lourdes put on in the second half. “We had a strategy, and they believed in it.”
The adjustments in the second half did work out to a certain degree. While the Tigers were making more substitutions than what would be in a normal contest, the Warriors were able to find some more consistent success overall.
Still though, the deficit was just too much to overcome against an incredibly talented Kingston team. Lourdes wasn’t able to bring home a section title, but the values and importance of the program was still able to shine through regardless of the result.
This article originally appeared on Poughkeepsie Journal: First half struggles doom Lourdes in section title loss to Kingston
Reporting by Eric Decker, Poughkeepsie Journal / Poughkeepsie Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
