Mustangs Enduring Close Shaves in '04 - '05

Just call them the Cardiac Kids. That label seems well-earned after the George Mason High School boys basketball team’s first four games were decided by an average margin of less than three points.

A four-point loss to Central Woodstock, a one-point loss to Highland, a one-point win over AAA George C. Marshall and a four-point win against Calvary Temple inaugurated the 2004-05 campaign and have Head Coach William Broderick happy, but reeling. “I’m going to need to get some blood pressure medication,” he said prior to Monday’s game against Fairfax.

While nerve-wracking, the past two victories have certainly been encouraging, and, Broderick hopes, indicative of the character and improving composure of a team that lost four of five starters from a year ago.

The Mustangs never folded against the Statesmen, even after trailing by 13 at halftime and nine at the end of the third quarter. “It was a tough fourth quarter,” Marshall Head Coach Kevin Weeren said. “Up until then we were controlling a lot of the game, but then we just came apart at the seams.”

Down the stretch Marshall’s foul trouble plagued the team, whistled for seven times as many as Mason, and the final call of the game tipped the scales. With the score tied at 50, senior Will Straub pulled down a defensive rebound while getting fouled from behind. With the Statesmen in the penalty, Straub toed the foul line to shoot a pair of free throws with .6 seconds remaining. He converted the first shot to put Mason up 51-50, then purposefully missed the second to help run out the clock.

“It’s a good win for us,” Broderick said. “I don’t know how many times we beat them if we play them a bunch of times. But we didn’t quit and gave ourselves a chance to win.”

“We had a lot of our experienced people foul out down the stretch,” Weeren said. “We made some poor decisions, we turned the ball over (25 for the game) and missed free throws.”

Josiah Larson led the Mustangs statistically with 20 points and 16 rebounds, while Colin Molano scored 13 points and Sam Ehsani added nine. Straub contributed five points and 12 boards, while junior Travis Greene snared 11 rebounds. Mason followed up the win over Marshall with another close shave against Calvary Temple last Friday. While Calvary’s student body is small, the private school proved tough competition. Again the Mustangs found themselves trailing throughout the game, down one at the half and by as many as seven in the fourth quarter.

But Paul Mene, rallied Mason scoring 10 of the team’s 19 fourth-quarter points and adding what Broderick labeled a “tremendous block,” to come away with the victory. Mene finished with 12 points and seven rebounds, while Asani scored 11 points. Molano added nine points and six assists.

To this point in the schedule, Broderick has been pleased with the team’s free-throw shooting (70-percent against Marshall), which was a trouble area last season with the team shooting under 50-percent from the line. But Broderick still wants to cut down on the team’s turnovers (averaging about 22 a game).

Monday’s contest against Fairfax, a AAA school, was one-sided 71-48 loss for the Mustangs, but such growing pains are not upsetting to Broderick.

“We’ve just got to keep getting better,” Broderick said. “We’ve got to get into basketball mode. We’ve got a bunch of kids who just got done with football or golf, and that’s a good thing. But other teams have players who play basketball year round. We have a tough schedule and we want to be playing our best basketball as we’re getting ready for the Bull Run tournament.”