With Fast Attack, St. Edward Basketball Downs Lake Catholic

This isn’t the type of basketball St. Edward coach Eric Flannery is used to seeing from his teams.

Then again, he certainly isn’t complaining.

A dyed-in-the-wool aficionado of half-court basketball, Flannery is finding fun in having a fast-paced attack. His Eagles squad, led by the athletic backcourt of Myles Hamilton and Elijah Brown, ran away with another one Saturday night, downing host Lake Catholic, 93-63, in non-conference action.

The game, a makeup date following a Dec. 4 postponement, was the second night of back-to-back for both teams. Lake Catholic (9-5) was coming off loss in North Coast League play against Villa Angela-St. Joseph on Friday, while St. Edward (12-4) had toppled rival St. Ignatius.

The Cougars were willing to indulge the Eagles in an up-tempo game, but St. Edward simply had too much athleticism, forcing 28 turnovers with relentless full-court defensive pressure and quick offense.

“The kids enjoy it,” Flannery said. “It was hard for me because I’ve been more of a half-court, defensive guy, but my focus always is that we want to give our team the best chance to win. This year, the best chance is for us to get up and down as much as possible to try to score quickly. We’re doing a pretty good job of that.”

Hamilton finished with a game-high 27 points and seven rebounds. Brown, the son of former Cleveland Cavaliers coach Mike Brown, scored 20 with four 3-pointers. Hamilton, a 6-foot-1 junior, said his team is thriving off the high-octane tempo, and it’s creating opportunities for everyone in the lineup.

“This year, everything’s changed. We speed up the game so that we’re playing our pace the whole game,” Hamilton said. We have a whole bunch of slashers on the team. Delbert (Love) is known for shooting, but we know he can get to the basket just as easy as me and Elijah can. That opens things up for (Kyle) Pisco when he drives the baseline, and people can get shots on the other side of the court. This offense is pretty good for us.”

Love and Pisco also finished in double-figures, scoring 11 and 10 points, respectively.

St. Edward seized control with an 11-0 run late in the first quarter and maintained a comfortable lead the rest of the night.

With his team playing for the second straight night, Flannery went deep into his bench, and that allowed the Cougars to make a brief comeback late in the first half. Lake closed the second quarter on a 13-2 run to draw within 10 at halftime. Junior Joey Vuyancih, who scored a team-high 18, had the final five points in the outburst.

Mike Whalen knocked down a 3 for Lake to start the third, drawing the Cougars to within 46-39, but St. Ed’s quickly responded with eight traight points, leaving Lake in the rearview mirror. The Cougars didn’t slow down, but they couldn’t keep up with the fifth-gear Eagles.

“It’s just the way (St. Edward is) playing this year – that constant pressure. We try to play that way too, but they have a few more horses than we do,” Lake Catholic coach Mark Chicone said.

“Our top to bottom, I can’t complain. We wanted to play a fast pace. I didn’t care if they scored a hundred and some, we were going to press them the whole game. We were going to play fast. And that’s exactly what we did.”

It was just that the Eagles did it better. And you won’t hear any complaints from Coach Flannery about how they did it.