Blazers Cant Overcome Snappers

The John Wood Men's Basketball team welcomed the Snappers of Spoon River College for a Midwest Athletic Conference matchup last night and tried to end a three-game losing streak.

What Coach Brad Hoyt wanted his guys to do was play with a sense of pace and urgency, but the pressure and poise of the Snappers from Spoon River made that a tough challenge for a team still trying to figure out what their identity is.

"We're just soul-searching a little bit," he said. "We're just trying to find ourselves still, and it's a bad part of the year to still be trying to figure out your identity. We're running out of time to figure that out."

Plagued by 23 turnovers and an uncharacteristic porous defense, the Trail Blazers saw their losing streak reach four games last night with a 75-74 overtime setback. The Blazers started off rough and continued that trend into the second half. That forced Coach Hoyt to pull all five starts out of the game with just a mere 85 seconds into the second half and try and rely on his second strong group to bring them back in the game. That group was able to do that and close the gap to just down by three points with just a minute and 37 seconds left in regulation.

Two free throws by Breiton Klingle would help the Blazers close that gap, and force overtime. However, the Snappers would make some key stops and buckets to walk away with just their second win in conference play.

"It's the old adage that if you're doing the same thing over and over, you can't expect a different result, right?" Hoyt said of his decision to bench the starters.

"I didn't think we were playing well or playing together. We give up an offensive rebound, we turn it over and we don't run a set right, all in the first two minutes of the second half. Those other guys came in and they did a great job."

John Wood will look to get back in the win column when they travel to Parkland College on Saturday for a conference rematch with the top team in the league. Game time is scheduled for 3:00pm.