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St. Mary�s puts a halt to North's winning ways By Greg Stiles No doubt about it, North Medford�s boys basketball team has absorbed some ugly losses as the Black Tornado has waited for the pieces to fit together. So after scoring back-to-back victories, the Tornado had to be smarting just a bit from Friday night�s 80-57 whipping administered by St. Mary�s of Berkeley, Calif., at the South Medford gym. The loss dropped the Tornado (2-6) into tonight�s Abby�s Holiday Classic third-place game against Canby. Tip-off is slated for 6 p.m. "I�m kind of shocked," said junior post Travis Poulton. "They didn�t beat Sheldon (on Thursday) by that much. But they just kicked our tails." Chase Moore scored 15 points, leading a balanced effort by the Panthers (9-1), who won their eighth straight game since losing to Bishop O�Dowd of Oakland, Calif. "I wouldn�t be surprised if the tournament finds out how good they are (tonight)," said third-year coach North Medford coach Gene Quilhaugh. The good news is the Black Tornado won�t see the likes of St. Mary�s again. A 12-0 run spanning two minutes gave the Panthers a 15-5 advantage with 3:45 left in the first quarter, and it was 21-10 at the break. St. Mary�s bulge quickly grew to 13, but inside buckets by Gabe Burchfiel and Poulton, along with a 3-pointer and two free throws by Mike Olson, helped North shave the deficit to 30-22 with 4:09 left in the half. Moments later, St. Mary�s found itself without its captain when junior guard DeShawn Freeman got poked in the eye as Olson went for a steal. Freeman�s right eyelid was torn and he was taken to the hospital. He received three stitches and was given eye drops to help his blurred vision. "He was told if he takes the medication after noon that he couldn�t play," St. Mary�s coach Jose Caraballo said. "We�re going to wait and see if he plays. We�ll know by shoot-around time. Whether he can go." Freeman finished with 11 points in 12 minutes. "It made us go just that much harder," said junior guard John Sharper. "(Freeman) might be out for a while. After that, it was a much more emotional game for us." St. Mary�s proceeded to go on a 20-5 binge, led by Moore�s seven points, to make it 50-27 at the half. The matter was settled. The sequence left Quilhaugh unsettled. "We had four boys with either two or three fouls in the second quarter," Quilhaugh said. "I wasn�t satisfied with the effort of the boys we had in there, and I wasn�t pleased that it wound up 50-27 at the half." St. Mary�s scored the first 13 points of the second half as Sharper finished off a fastbreak to give the Panthers a 63-27 lead with 5:20 left in the third quarter. As had been the case in the first half, the Tornado had turnover troubles. "They came out with a lot of intensity, and we should�ve matched it," said senior guard Ben Anderson. "A lot of the turnovers had to do with the way we passed the ball. We hurried a lot and didn�t make good passes when we should�ve taken our time." Quilhaugh said he expects the Tornado to have turnovers 20 percent of the time because of its running style. "We had 72 possessions and I would have expected us to have 14 turnovers," Quilhaugh said. "We had 23, and that�s nine more than I would�ve expected." Poulton finished with 16 points and Olson added 13. Even though the game was out of reach, Quilhaugh was pleased with the Tornado�s 13-8 stretch run that at one time trimmed the deficit to 19 points. "We brought back our pride and integrity," Quilhaugh said. "We finished strong." ST. MARY�S (80) � Boyd 9, Staus 9, Fanning 6, Sharper 13, Freeman 11, Fielder 4, Moore 15, Williams 1, Moroco 0, Parham 0, Rodriguez 4, Knight 8. Totals: 31-70 14-29 80. NORTH MEDFORD (57) � Olson 13, Weeks 5, Poulton 16, Foreman 3, Deline 0, Andreson 8, Burchfiel 5, Wessells 0, O�Brien 4, Lucas 0, Taylor 3, Hovland 0. Totals: 17-54 21-35. St. Mary�s................................................21 29 17 13 � 80 North Medford.......................................10 17 11 19 � 57 3-point goals � St. Mary�s 4 (Straus 1, Fanning 2, Sharper 1), North Medford 2 (Olson 2). Fouled out � Fanning, Anderson. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.