St. Vincent-St. Mary junior Franshon “Fresh” Bickley says he stands “5-foot-7 on a good day.”
Bickley was the shortest of the 11 Fighting Irish basketball players who played Tuesday night against host Kenmore.
He did not lead St. V-M in scoring, but his athleticism and speed helped the Irish to a 69-62 come-from-behind victory in overtime.
The Irish (9-6) trailed the Cardinals (8-5) for most of the game, but forced overtime and then won behind the leadership of Bickley and seniors D.J. Blanks and Lorenzo Cugini.
“Fresh comes off the bench for us and he is our energy guy,” St. V-M coach Dru Joyce II said. “He plays hard and, defensively, I thought he did some good things. Our guards are real tentative right now. They haven’t shot that well, but he came in off the bench and made some shots. We needed that to happen.”
Blanks and Cugini led St. V-M in scoring with 21 points apiece.
Senior Antonio Hearn paced Kenmore with 18 points, nine rebounds, four assists and two steals.
The score was tied at 14-14 after one quarter. Kenmore took control of the game in the middle quarters and led 27-22 at halftime and 46-39 after three quarters. The Cardinals’ largest lead was 44-34 when senior Dierre Brown made a jumper with 4:50 to go in the third.
“We weren’t ready to play,” Joyce said. “The guys didn’t come ready to play. I told the guys before the game that I could sense it. I have done this long enough. We just weren’t ready to go. I knew Kenmore was going to be ready. That is what happens when you don’t come ready to play from the opening tap. Hopefully, the kids learn from it.”
St. V-M rallied behind Blanks (nine points in the third) and Cugini (nine points in the fourth).
“They showed senior leadership,” Joyce said. “They have waited their turn. They are the seniors and the leaders on this team. In games like this, they have been there and they need to take control and make sure everyone understands their place and what needs to be done.”
Cugini admitted the Irish were not ready to play
“We were a little lazy,” said Cugini, a 6-foot-6 High Point recruit. “I saw it in warm-ups and Fresh saw it in warm-ups. We were a little lackadaisical. We were down the whole game. We realized when we were done that we needed to pick it up and play harder. I feel like once we started to play hard, we could not be stopped in the end.”
Bickley scored five of his seven points in the fourth to help St. V-M draw even at 57-57 going into overtime.
“My team was working hard and I just had to be productive and play with them,” Bickley said. “I just try to keep the energy that they already have going.”
St. V-M used its height advantage during its comeback. Cugini grabbed 12 rebounds in the game and 6-5 junior Nick Wells added six points and seven rebounds.
“We have 6-10, 6-8, 6-7, 6-6, 6-5 and their tallest guy is 6-2 [sophomore Oshay Vinson],” said Blanks, who is 6-3 and had three assists, two blocks and two steals. “Then they play just six guys. I don’t think we came out ready to play. We came out a little sluggish, but we picked it up at the end, though.”
Junior DeSean Ballinger scored 15 points for Kenmore and senior David Oldham added 10 points.
“We had to try and make sure that we rested our guys,” Kenmore coach Brian Dawson said. “Coach Dan Claar does a good job of getting our substitutions in and trying to keep everyone as fresh as possible. However, we are a little bit outgunned when a team can bring 10 to 12 guys in on us like that.”
Dawson said he was pleased with his team’s rebounding effort, but not happy with their shooting from the free-throw line in overtime.
“In overtime, we just didn’t make free throws,” Dawson said. “We were 1-out-of-5 and they were 6-out-of-6.”
Michael Beaven can be reached at 330-996-3829 or mbeaven@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the high school blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/varsity_letters/. Also follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MBeavenABJ. Follow ABJ sports on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/sports.abj.
