St.

Saturday, December 04, 1999

St. Joe had a chance to put their game away early and easily Friday night, but the Flyers managed to make only 16 of 42 free throw attempts.

Fortunately, the rest of their play was good enough to produce a 56-43 season-opening win over the Coal Grove Hornets and spoil the coaching debut of coach Darrell Humphreys.

"If we make our free throws, we win by 20-25 points," Flyers coach Kevin Sheridan said. "The only one positive you can draw from this game is we won. It was good to win, it was a good start and it is something to build on, but we’ve got to get better."

The Flyers got a good effort from senior Matt Frazer who had a game-high 21 points, grabbed eight rebounds, and had four assists. However, he was only 7 of 18 from the line.

"We played pretty rough at the start. We didn’t play like we could. We let of lot of things slide the first part of the game," Frazer said.

What made Frazer’s ability a question mark last week was a bad ankle. He spent half the week sidelined and wasn’t certain if he would play against Coal Grove.

"I didn’t think I’d be looking to score. It was just there for me," said Frazer.

Besides Frazer, Eric Waginger had 11 points and eight rebounds while Andy Stack had 12 points.

Coal Grove got 11 points from Jason Adams and Dean Mader. Ryan Young and Mader had seven rebounds each.

St. Joe held a 37-25 rebound advantage, but Sheridan was still unhappy with the play inside.

"We’ve got to do a better job screening out. We’re not big, so we’ve got to get a better positions," he said.

Both teams battled turnovers and poor shooting the first quarter as St. Joe took a 12-8 lead.

The Flyers began to pull away in the second quarter.

Frazer converted a three-point play and St. Joe led 18-10. David Webb later made two fouls shots and Coal Grove trailed by a mere 21-16.

But Chris Laber, getting his first career points, sank two foul shots at the 2:34 mark to put the lead back at 23-16.

A layup by Frazer extended the lead to 26-16 before Adams’ 3-pointer got the Hornets within 26-19. Bub Waginger’s foul shot extended the lead to 27-19 at the end of the quarter.

St. Joe was on the verge of putting the game away in the third quarter. Bub Waginger made two layups, Eric Waginger scored, and Frazer hit a layup and at the 1:50 mark and it was 41-23.

Coal Grove refused to quit as Jason Winters hit a 3-pointer and Adams layup cut the deficit to 41-28 and trailed just 42-30 at the end of the quarter.

"If Coal Grove plays as hard against other thems as they did tonight, they’ll win some games," Sheridan said.

A 12-footer by Adams and a layup by Young got Coal Grove within 45-38 with 5:28 to play. But Frazer sank 7 of 13 from the line in the quarter, Bub Waginger had a steal and a foul shot, and Eric Waginger’s driving layup with 23 seconds left got the lead back to 53-43 with 24 seconds left.

In the reserve game, Coal Grove won 55-23 as J. J. Hunt scored 17 and Eric Tackett 8. Joey Laber had 10 and Danny Stack 5 for St. Joe.

COAL GROVE – 8 11 11 13 – 43: Beau Webb 0-1 0-0 0-0 0, Ryan Young 4-10 0-3 0-0 8, Joe Sark 0-3 0-0 0-0 0, Jason Adams 4-12 1-2 2-2 11, Dean Mader 5-10 0-0 1-1 11, Jason Winters 1-9 1-3 2-2 5, Josh Collins 0-1 0-0 0-0 0, David Webb 1-4 0-1 2-2 4, Brandon Hicks 2-7 0-1 0-1 4. Totals: 17-57 (2-9) 7-8 43. Rebounds: 25 (Mader 7, Young 7). Assists: 5 (Webb, Young, Mader, Adams, Winters 1 each). Steals: 11 (Young 4). Turnovers: 22. Fouls: 30. Fouled out: Webb, Young, Mader.

ST. JOSEPH – 12 15 15 14 – 56: John "Bub" Waginger 2-3 0-3 2-11 6, Eric Waginger 5-10 0-1 1-3 11, Bill Dressel 2-5 0-1 1-2 5, Matt Frazer 7-11 0-0 7-18 21, Rusty Yaniko 1-3 0-0 3-4 5, Andy Stack 2-4 2-2 0-2 6, Chris Laber 0-0 0-0 2-2 2. Totals: 19-38 (2-8) 16-42 56. Rebounds: 37 (E. Waginger 8, Frazer 8, Stack 7). Assists: 8 (Frazer 4), J. Waginger 2. Steals: 11 (J. Waginger 5, E. Waginger 3). Turnovers: 23. Fouls: 14. Fouled out: None.