St. Brendan School basketball boys claimed second place in the Community R-6 Tournament with Thursday night’s 36-16 victory over St. Joseph of Martinsburg.
The Grade 7/8 Irish improved their record to 5-2 with the help of a 14-4 lead at halftime.
“We were ahead early, which allowed us to go deep into our bench. Our bench (led by Neil Hopkins) really played well, causing them to turn the ball over,” SBS coach Christopher Abbott said. “Coach (Bill) Gleeson and I weren’t surprised by our performance. The team has been working hard at developing the fundamentals and those efforts were evident.”
Christian McKeown, Logan Robinett and Josh Patterson dominated the paint for the Irish. McKeown totaled 15P/5R/8S, Robinett 6P/8R/4S and Patterson 4P/5R/2 blocks, while Brandt Wieberg added 2P/1R/6S, Tyler Bradley 4P/4R, Rodrigo Perez 2P/1R/1S, Hopkins 2P/3S and Matthias Whitworth 1P/6S/1R.

Lady Trojans take top spot
Other girls games Thursday in the Community R-6 Tournament saw the Grade 8 Lady Trojans top Wellsville-Middletown 18-7 and the Grade 7 Lady Trojans fall 26-16 to St. Brendan.
For the G8 Lady Trojans, who led 10-1 at the half, Aaliyah Thomas scored 6P, Paige Harris 6P, Paige Curtis 4P and Megan Jones 2P. Katie Blaue had 5P and Cheyenne Yelton 2P for W-M.
St. Brendan posted 11 of the game’s first 15 points to lead 18-9 at halftime against the G7 Lady Trojans. Emmalee McCaskey netted 5P, Amelia Knipfel 4P, Bianca Stafford 3P, Julie Hale 2P and Lindsey Gastler 2P for Community R-6, while Kaitlyn Brooks had 2R/1S, Josie Mueller 3R, Kaitlin Orr 2R/2S, Anna Perll 1R/2S, Tessah Shaw 9P/4R, Remington Greenwell 4P/1R, Kaitlin Ingrum 2R/1S, Kellie Ingrum 6P/1R/1S, Beth Jennings 4P/2S and Emilee Rodenabugh 3P/3R/1S for the 5-2 Lady Irish. Rachel Kerr and Asia Reno played solid defense for SBS as well.
The G8 Lady Trojans ended round-robin play with a 3-0 record, St. Brendan 2-1, Wellsville 1-2 and the G7 Lady Trojans 0-3.
“Defense was the key for us and we only allowed 24 points in the three games,” CR6 coach Bob Curtis said of his championship squad. “That helped us as we had a few nights where we struggled offensively.”
Boys records for the tourney saw Wellsville go 3-0 for first, followed by St. Brendan 2-1, Community R-6 1-2 and St. Joseph 0-3.