Offense Struggles as St. Rose is Eliminated from the SCT

Just as things were looking positive for the St. Rose boys basketball team, the Purple Roses  faced an offensive struggle it could not overcome, losing to Raritan, 55-46, in the Shore Confeerence Tournament quarterfinals.

"Following that first quarter, it really hit me believing we could come out here and win this game,"  St. Rose head coach Dennis Devaney said. "It's one thing to tell the boys all week in practice we can do it, but actually going out there and playing the way we did in the first gave us a lot of hope."

The Roses came out strong -- even fast paced at times. Senior Andrew Kurtz was a significant inside presence at both ends of the court, scoring eight and shutting down a much taller center.

"He great a great job on defense all game in particular," Devaney said. "Everyone has to help out when you're at a size disadvantage. On offense, he started to force things as the game went on as things slipped."

Mark Kukuda was terrific early as well. The junior was all over the place, scoring twice off brilliant passes from Cliff Clark and Brendan Carroll and converted his own steal to total six points in the first quarter. After one quarter, the Roses held a 14-11 lead.

It was not scoring that was different, it was how they were scoring.

Since the injury to Andrew Van Schaack, the Roses have used a guard heavy spread system relying on passes hitting the open man and solid shooting -- largely on three pointers. St. Rose found much success running the spread against Manasuqan and Matawan in the two prior games.

Offensive setbacks in the second and third quarter allowed the Rockets to go on a 21-6 run that lasted up until the fourth quarter.

"When it was 14-11, midway through the second, we missed at least three chip - one was an uncontested layup." Devaney said.  "When every possession as valuable as it was today, that just can't happen. We stopped running out there."

Mark Kukuda and Cliff Clark almost got the Roses back into it, but it was too late and Raritan was excellent shooting their free throws.

The Roses got within 42-37 before they resulted to fouling the Rockets -- who sealed the deal making their shots.

"We were down 15, missing shots and just regrouped to see if we could put anything together. At that point we had nothing to lose and almost made a game out of it." Devaney said.

Mark Kukuda scored a team high 16 points followed by seniors Andrew Kurtz with 12, and Cliff Clark with seven.