By During winter break, the Carroll College men’s basketball team overcame adversity with injured players and disappointing losses when they traveled to Chandler, Arizona, to play four games in the Cactus Classic.
The Saints ended up losing all four games but came back with a positive attitude looking toward the rest of the season.
Getting onto the plane, the Saints knew they couldn’t count on Jonny Hillman, a senior guard from Post Falls, Idaho, a team captain and the team’s second-leading scorer. Hillman was out with a knee injury.
After a disappointing loss in the first game to Ottawa University Arizona (58-86), the team battled against Olivet Nazarene University from Illinois in a game that came down to the final seconds. The Saints were down one point with 30 seconds to play, but a dunk attempt got blocked, and the Tigers of Olivet Nazarene were able to secure the win 86-91.
To make matters worse, third leading scorer Brendan Temple, a senior from Castle Rock, Colorado, went down with a sprained ankle during the game and was forced to sit out during the third game and play through the injury in the fourth and last game of the trip.
“Guys were hurt, so the mentality was next guy up and just play ‘hard’ on all facets of the game,” said Isaiah Moore, a freshman guard from Fairfield, California, with an undecided major, who got his first collegiate starts with Hillman being out.
“Coming from the loss of the first game, I felt like we bounced back and played better,” said Moore. “We just missed some stops towards the end.”
Without Temple, the Saints dropped the third game of the trip to California’s Menlo College, 53-69. In the last game of the trip, the team fought in a close battle with California’s Vanguard University, but once again, came up short in the final minutes, losing 72-78.
“I think the trip was a big gut check to see what we were really made of,” said Garrett Long, a sophomore, captain guard from Wenatchee, Washington, majoring in business management. “With our seniors out, we got some really good experience for the younger guys on the team. We definitely learned to find some right in us and push through adversity when no one else was really on our side.”
The scoreboard was disappointing, but the spirit on the ride home was optimistic.
“We had to keep understanding that winning games comes with putting work in every day and trusting each other and ourselves in crucial moments.”
