Early turnovers and problems initiating their offense put the MATC men’s basketball team in an early hole they could never dig their way out of. The Stromers lost 70-52 to the Rochester Community and Technical College Yellowjackets during MATC’s home opener at Alverno College, Saturday, Nov. 16. Rochester jumped out to an early lead of 15-4, capitalizing on the poor shot selection of the Stormers. The Stormers team was eventually able to stop the bleeding when sophomore point guard Josten Sanchez took over ballhandling duties to prevent the Yellowjackets from increasing their lead. Sanchez lead the team with 13 points. Forward/center Steve Stovall, Jr. followed with 11 points and eight rebounds. Forward Terrell Hayes also had eight rebounds for the Stormers.
Regarding his team’s inability to reduce Rochester’s advantage, Head Coach Randy Casey commented, “Most of it was our- selves. Not getting into anything offensively, up and down moments where we wanted to play defense and then not wanted to play defense. Rochester is a good team; you have to give them credit pressuring us and us backing down to that pressure.”
Casey was called for a technical foul three minutes into the second half for arguing a basket interference call that went against the Stormers. His fervor seemed to stoke the flames of effort in his team. “At the time it looked like it was worth it. We went on a little run but as you saw, it fizzled out,” said Casey. MATC was able to chip away to reduce the lead to single digits but Rochester responded with a defiant three pointer to make it 51-39 and the Yellowjackets never looked back.
The loss dropped the Stormers to 1-5 for the season. The focus of the team’s next practice will be, “trying to play every minute with intensity, trying to play hard from the get-go for a full 40 minutes,” said Casey.