January 15, 2006
Slow Starts Hinder Slugs

The UCSC Slugs Men's Basketball Team got off to slow starts against the Cal Lutheran, Kingsmen and Pomona Pitzer, Sagehens and left Los Angeles feeling a little blue. In both games the Slugs struggled out of the gates, and in the case of Cal Lu made a great comeback to take a late lead but just couldn't hold on and let it slip away, 52-58.

The Slugs started slow against Cal Lutheran trailing by as much as 10 points before Jon Miller (13 points), Murphy Holmes (10 points), and some inspired defense allowed the Slugs to cut the lead to 6 points by the half.

The second half was a different story for the first 18 minutes as the Slugs came out and attacked the Kingsmen on both ends of the floor and managed to wrestle the lead away and go up by as much as 5 points with 2 minutes left in the game. However, several careless turnovers and Jon Miller playing limited minutes in the second half because of foul trouble, allowed Cal Lu to come back and steal one away from the Slugs.

Jimmy Herrera (1 for 5 from the field) and Jon Mercado (1 for 2 from the field), who has been in a mini shooting slump, could only manage to score 6 and 3 points each respectfully which, really hindered the Slugs offensively.

The next afternoon the Slugs took on Pomona Pitzer and were just handed an old fashioned butt-kicking early in the game. The much bigger Sagehens, who pounded the Slugs on the boards (48 to 19) jumped out to an early 27 to 6 lead and cruised into a 33 to12 halftime lead. The starting unit of Seniors, Bryan Maeda (0-6), Jimmy Herrera (2-12), Jon Miller (1-6), Fernando Barreda (1-5) and Junior, Lorenzo Hutton (0-5), who was just coming back off a knee injury, played arguably their worst game of the year shooting collectively 4 for 34 from the floor and only gathered in 9 rebounds. For all intents and purposes the game was all but over by the end of the first 10 minutes. Feeling this to be a great opportunity to take a good look at the future, Coach Gordie Johnson made a bold move and benched his starters and gave his youth a try.

The youth came out and played with a lot of passion and outscored the Sagehens for the next 30 minutes 37-28. Even though they eventually lost the game 43-55, it was the passion, energy, and never-give-up attitude of the youth that had the coaching staff feeling pretty good in spite of the loss.

ìI saw some things in the young kids that made me feel good; they fought like crazy on both ends of the floor; they never gave up, which is a good sign of things to come,î observes Coach Johnson.

Freshman Mike Hicks led all Slugs with 9 points, as this was the first game this year that the Slugs didn't have a scorer in double figures.

The Slugs next home game is this Saturday, January 21 against Chapman, who they lost to earlier in the year 57-77. The Slugs played this game without starting center Jon Miller, but who knows this could be a different game especially with the youth gaining more playing time and confidence each day and game.