Friday night was the battle of the Jesuits as the Rangers faced off against the Strake Jesuit Crusaders in Houston. With Jesuit Dallas having taken a victory in both the soccer playoffs last spring and the football game earlier this fall, the basketball team was eager to keep the perfect sports record against Strake Jesuit in the calendar year. The score was tied at the end of one quarter, 14 to 14, but it was all downhill after that for the Rangers. Halftime brought about a 10 point lead for Strake, with the Rangers scoring only 9 points in the second quarter. Dallas Jesuit made a small push in the third, partly led by Blake Vierling who took two charges, and contributed 2 three-pointers. The lead was cut to 6, but the Crusaders surged in the early part of the fourth quarter, making the deficit too big for the Rangers to overcome. Strake’s 75-52 victory was led by two stud guards, Gillon and Sulaimon, who scored 19 and 18 points respectively, and one 6’7” post, Felton, who added 19 points of his own. The Crusaders made driving to the hoop look easy and had many layups and easy buckets in the half court offense. They had four players with double points, as opposed to only two for the Rangers. Junior David Lacey led the scoring for the Rangers, putting up 18 points. Junior Reid Leinbaugh had four 3s to total his 12 points, but had to leave the game in the fourth quarter with an ankle injury. Senior manager, Eric Leyendecker commented, “We had lots of turnovers, and really couldn’t get into any kind of rhythm on offense. I just don’t think this new team has gelled yet, but we’ll get there.” When asked about Friday’s game, Coach Hill said, “They were good, but we made them look really good. We didn’t play very good help defense and this is a good lesson for the guys to learn about playing like a team.”
