MEDFORD, Mass. - It wasn’t the type of win Franklin coach Dean O’Connor predicted, but it’s a win the Panthers will happily take.
Franklin (3-2, 2-1 Kelley-Rex) came away with a 55-48 win over Cardinal Spellman in their first game of the third annual Shooting Touch Shootout, ending the game on a 15-2 run.
“Defensively we played well,” O’Connor said about his team’s victory. “Defensively, as a coaching staff we were on them pretty good about making mistakes. As a team we made plenty of mistakes, but holding a team like this to 48 points was good for our team.”
Senior Chris Rodgers lead the way for the Panthers with 20 points and 11 rebounds, but it was ultimately Dylan Reno and Quenten Harrell’s 11 points each, that helped Franklin secure the win.
“[Quenten Harrell] did an excellent job defensively on whoever had the hot hand for them. Reno had a couple of big baskets in the second half, a few put-backs, and overall I thought he played his best game of the season. We are going to need him to play like that if we want to be a good team.”
Midway through the fourth quarter, down six, Harrell caught the ball at the free-throw line and attacked the basket getting a contested layup to fall that sparked the Franklin comeback. On the next possession Harrell found an open Reno who drilled a three to cut deficit to just one.
“Both of them just played their best games of the year,” Chris Rodgers said about his teammates. “I couldn’t be more proud of them. Dylan has had some tough games up to this point but he just played great today and I couldn’t be happier for both of them.”
Rodgers made four consecutive free throws in the final 90 seconds that helped Franklin secure the win.
Despite coming away victorious, both O’Connor and Rodgers know that this team needs to improve on the little things if they want to be a good team.
“I thought early in the first half we didn’t play that bad,” O’Connor said despite his team having multiple turnovers early on. “We had seven travels and at this level you just can’t be doing that. Their a good, physical defensive team that’s going to make you turn it over, but you can’t be turning it over on your own.”
When asked about how the Panthers were going to cut down on their turnovers Rodgers said, “we just have to go harder in practice and focus on the little things, like traveling. That was the main problem for us, but if we make good decisions as a team we will get better.
“We don’t have a lot of guys with varsity experience,” Rodgers said. “But a win like this is always good for our team. I feel like everyone matured and we will get better.”
Franklin will have to fix their problems on the fly as they take on CBA (Lincroft, New Jersey) tomorrow at 2 in their second game of the Shooting Touch Shootout.
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