By Joshua Woolverton

The MACA Lions boys’ varsity basketball team gutted out a 69-56 win over the Rosedale Panthers in a game full of fouls and turnovers. The Lions stayed focused and capitalized on the Panthers’ mistakes to come out with a victory.

“I just told them to talk to each other and keep their composure,” MACA coach Glenn Teixeira said. “We knew we could win, just don’t get into it or talk to the refs.”

The team got off to a quick start. By mid-second quarter, the Lions held a 17 point lead, however, the Panthers went on a 13-3 run to close the half. The defense struggled to get stops and shots stopped falling. The halftime break couldn’t have come at a better time as the team made adjustments and came out firing in the second half.  

“We talked about finishing our quarters. We have had one bad quarter every game and we knew we weren’t working hard enough on defense so we locked them up and came out with the win in the second half.”

The lead opened back up on the third quarter and this time the Lions never let up.

“Our intensity changed,” MACA junior Nic Moorman said. “We went down and we stopped attacking the rim (at the end of the first half) and we knew we had to get back to going right at them.”

Senior Sam Carroll led the way for MACA with 14 points while junior Christian Eppich picked up 12 rebounds. The team worked to spread the court, continuously looking for open shots from the corner.

“We have to space the other team out and so we like to get our guys lower on the court,” Teixeira said. “Christian especially likes shooting from the corners.”

“I try to practice that and get open there,” Eppich said. “With the defense they showed us, it was open tonight.”

MACA’s next game will be at 6:30 p.m. at Heritage Academy on Friday, Dec. 13.