Cardinals End Season At 11-10 The St. Mary's Cardinals ended their season on Feb. 25 with a 51-47 loss to the Lynch Eagles in the finals of the D-2-6 subdistrict at Creighton. The Cardinals had defeated the Eagles twice this season and had a 10 point lead at half but the Eagles senior leadership which eventually qualified them for the state tournament was too much.
The loss left the Cardinals with a 11-10 record on the season. "I felt our young men improved a great deal as the season progressed. We continued to have problems a majority of the season at the free throw line, shots inside the lane, and the ability to maintain leads. I felt we lost too many games in the final quarter due to the fact we had to continually fight against inexperience. The Cardinals lost two games by two points, two by three points, two by four points, and one by five. In order to be a great team you just need to put those games away each night. But you have to give our young men credit because we won several games late but just were not consistent," commented Coach Chvala.
The Cardinals say goodbye to four seniors this season, Michael Krotter, Tyler Stracke, Tanner Timmerman and Josh Tomjack. "Each senior added positive contributions to the St. Mary’s basketball program over their career and we want to wish them the very best in the future. As we talk about the future that indeed looks bright for the Cardinals. We return a lot on experience and talent next season and down the road but just saying we might be good never won any games. It will take a lot of hard work and dedication to keep our program as one of the top in the state," commented Coach Chvala.
Varsity team members for the 2009-10 season were seniors Michael Krotter, Tyler Stracke, Tanner Timmerman and Josh Tomjack; juniors Derek Blumenstock, Kyle Eby and Rex Stowell; sophomores Ryan Podany, Tait Sibbel, Tyler Timmerman, David Shields and Tom Chvala; and freshmen Ty Eiler, Connor Connot and Aaron Ohri.
Cardinal Junior Varsity 16-0
The St. Mary's Cardinals again ended their season undefeated at 16-0. Last year team ended the year at 13-0 so the Cardinals have not lost a junior varsity game since a two point loss to Ewing Tigers in January of 2008. The 34 game winning streak will carry into next season as we continue to build a consistent winning program at St. Mary’s.
Again this season the Cardinals played a freshmen schedule since it is not always possible to get 18 to 19 young men each and every night in the junior varsity games. The freshmen had a lot of success which included winning the Orchard-Clearwater JV tournament and placing second in the Grand Island Hoops Mania this past weekend. We also had our freshmen-sophomore team win the St. Mary’s Booster Club Tourney.
The St. Mary’s Cardinals have a lot of talent in the lower grades along with very successful junior high teams so a lot of off season work should produce a great deal of success in the future. Junior varsity team members for the 2009-10 season were juniors Rex Stowell and Chayakorn Preechakul; sophomores Luke Loecker, Ryan Podany, Tait Sibbet, Tyler Timmerman, David Shields and Tom Chvala; and freshmen Cole Moon, Igor Volk, Luke Schneider, Kyle Loecker, Aaron Ohri, Anthony Harvey, Ty Eiler, Jeremiah Cuddy, Cody Colman, Lucus Kozisek, Connor Connot and Austin Holz. |
