TOWN AND COUNTRY • Coaching against his alma mater -- and his high school coach -- for the first time, Soldan's Justin Tatum could not have been more pleased.
“It was a perfect game,'' Tatum said just minutes after the visiting Tigers pulled out a 61-57 victory Monday night at CBC. “This is the game we expected and hoped to get from CBC. They pushed us to the limit, but that's what you expect from Cadets.''
Tatum and Soldan assistant coach Ryan Johnson, key players on the CBC state championship squad coached by Bob McCormack in 1997, enjoyed a joyful homecoming Monday as the Tigers, ranked No. 1 among STLhighschoolsports.com small schools, scored the final six points in the comeback win.
“We just had to play as a team,'' said Soldan senior Randy Holmes, who scored 10 of his team-high 24 points in the final quarter. “Our coaches expect a lot of us; they told me that I needed to step it up and that's what I tried to do.''
The Tigers improved to 15-4, while CBC (12-9) dropped its fourth consecutive game. The other losses, however, came against Hazelwood Central (No. 7, large schools), De Smet (No. 10, large schools) and Cardinal Ritter (No. 3, small schools).
“That's not by accident,'' McCormack pointed out. “We've never ducked anybody. Our schedule is always tough and this year we're playing it with a pretty young squad. We don't worry about the won-loss record as much as we look for improvement. Games like this, tough as they are, are only going to help us in the long run.''
Tatum feels the same.
“This team is talented and experienced and we want them to be challenged every night,'' the Soldan coach said. “Games like tonight are the kind of games that make you stronger and hopefully prepare you for the playoffs.''
The Tigers, looking to make their third consecutive state trip, built an early 13-5 lead as senior Pete Sanders knocked down three 3-pointers in the opening quarter. Down 16-10 after one period, CBC rallied to even the score at 16 on a Jordan Barnett bank shot with 6:49 to play in the first half.
Soldan used an 8-2 lead to regain control, but CBC reserve Zach Fischer hit a 3 at the buzzer, cutting the Tigers' halftime lead to 30-25.
Soldan threatened to pull away in the third quarter, going up 43-30 when Paul McRoberts scored on an powerful drive from the right wing.
But CBC finished the third quarter on a 7-0 run, getting a buzzer-beating jumper from Aarion Maxey-Penton to cut the Tigers' lead to 47-42 with a quarter to play.
The Cadets continued to battle, grabbing their only lead of the game at 57-55 when Barnett, a 6-foot-7 sophomore, knocked down the second of his back-to-back 3-pointers with 1:48 left in regulation.
“We had a couple of breakdowns defensively -- we may have been a little winded at that point -- and Barnett took advantage,'' Tatum said. “He's really a nice player who's only going to get better.''
Facing their first deficit of the game, Soldan battled back to victory. After a McRoberts free throw cut the CBC lead to 57-56, the Tigers forced a turnover and then regained the lead at 58-57 when Holmes made a pretty inside pass to set up Rashad Simmons for a dunk with 41.5 seconds to play.
After a baseline shot from Barnett missed, Soldan's McRoberts found Holmes alone under the basket for a layup and a 60-57 Soldan lead with 10.5 seconds left.
As CBC's Maxey-Penton tried to set up one last shot, Soldan's Kawan Griffin knocked the ball loose and Sanders scooped it up.
Sanders knocked down one of two free throws with 1.9 seconds left for the 61-57 final.
“We had a chance and just failed to execute when we needed to down the stretch,'' McCormack said. “But it was a great game, a great game between two quality programs. I'm happy for Justin; you want your former players to go on and do well and he's done a great job with the program at Soldan.''
Holmes (24 points), Sanders (16) and McRoberts (15) combined for 55 of Soldan's points in the victory.
Barnett led CBC with 24 points and 10 rebounds, while junior Maxey-Penton and sophomore Patrick McCaw had 10 points apiece. The Cadets struggled mightily from the foul line, connecting on just 4 of 12 free throws.
“We're usually a lot better than that and it's one of the main things I just talked about,'' McCormack said. “In a game this tight, you can look back on a lot of things that you'd like to have work out differently, but obviously, the missed free throws hurt us.''
