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| November 21, 2005 Opening Weekend Trips Very Salty for Slugs The opening weekend for the Running Slugs saw the Slugs slow down to a crawl as they were soundly beaten by DI St. Mary's College Gales, 93-41 and DII Humboldt State Lumberjacks, 112-59. Going into this weekend, the Slugs knew it was going to be tough because they were going to be outsized in every position. St. Mary's is one of the biggest teams in the country, coming at you with a 7'0" center and a 6'10" All-American small forward. The smallest person on their roster was 6'2", and they all can play. From the start, the Slugs knew they were going to have to shoot well in order to stay in the game. That didn't happen as they shot a dismal 29% (15-51) from the field for the game, while St. Mary's shot 57% (31-54) and 48 % (12-25) from the 3-point line. Another glaring disadvantage for the Slugs was the rebounding as they were pounded on the boards by the much bigger Gales, 46-16. On the bright side, Bryan Maeda led all Slug scorers with 10 points, and freshman Michael Hicks dropped in 9 points. The very next night after a 5-hour drive, the Slugs took on Humboldt State who was coming off a beating at the hands of UC Berkeley and was looking for someone to play. The Slugs felt this was a game they might fair a little better at because they matched up a little better size-wise. Once the game started, all hope was quickly squashed as the Slugs again struggled out of the gate shooting only 29% (8-27) from the field in the first half. The smaller Slugs did however do a better job on the boards, but it was the numerous turnovers that were the difference of the game. The Slugs committed 33 turnovers for the game with most of them being converted to easy buckets by the Lumberjacks. Junior Jarrod Heredia led all Slugs with 13 points and 8 rebounds followed by seniors Fernando Barreda, 11 points and Jimmy Herrera, 10 points. The one area the Slugs are doing well is at the free-throw line where they shot over 90% for the weekend (5-5, St Mary's) and (16-18, Humboldt). Thankfully, the Slugs won't being seeing this kind of competition the rest of the year and now they can only hope to take this weekend's experience and look at the positives as they prepare for the remainder of the season against DIII completion. "We knew going into this weekend it was going to be tough, but these were games to find out how we were going to handle playing against much bigger and better players. I really felt that the players did a good job even though the scores were lopsided; they competed for 40 minutes and did the best they could. They won't see this kind of competition the rest of the season and I only hope we grow from this," stated Coach Johnson. |