St. Aloysius senior Drew Mazzanti tries to avoid going out of bounds with the basketball as Madison-St. Joe defender Matt Tenin defends in the first half Tuesday. (Jenny SevcikThe Vicksburg Post)

[11/19/03]Sarah Kerut owned the first half. The second belonged to LaJuana Thomas. And thanks to the efforts of its freshman stars, St. Aloysius now possesses its first win of the season.

Kerut scored 16 of her game-high 25 points in the first half and added 11 rebounds, and Thomas scored 11 of her 17 points in the last two quarters as St. Al (1-1) held off Madison-St. Joe 54-50 on Tuesday.

“I think it was a blessing for both of them to play last year, even though they took their lumps,” St. Al coach Paul Hayden said of Kerut and Thomas. “That shows they understand what’s at stake, but it also shows that my seniors stepped up.”

Laura Beth Lyons added 10 points and Caitlin Moak grabbed 12 rebounds for the Lady Flashes, who won only four games all of last season.

Neaisha Anderson led St. Joe with 22 points and eight steals, and Chenere Epps had 17 points.

St. Al was in control of the game the whole way, but couldn’t quite separate from the Lady Bruins (2-1) long enough to breathe easy.

Kerut’s scoring helped the Lady Flashes to an 11-3 run late in the second quarter and a 28-23 lead at halftime. Midway through the third quarter, Moak dished off to Kerut and Thomas in the post for easy layups on consecutive possessions to give St. Al a 38-28 advantage.

The Lady Flashes kept the lead around 10 points until late in the game, thanks to solid rebounding and St. Joe’s poor shooting.

Despite having a manageable deficit, the Lady Bruins seemed obsessed with the 3-pointer and jacked them up at every opportunity. They went just 2-for-14 from 3-point range in the second half and 4-for-23 for the game. St. Al made sure the Lady Bruins didn’t get a lot of second chances by outrebounding St. Joe 39-18, and 20-9 in the second half.

“We didn’t run our offense,” St. Joe coach LaTonya Carter said. “Then I’ve got a young team. I’ve got one senior and the rest are 10th- and ninth-graders. It’s going to take them a little bit to come together, but when they come together they’ll be all right.”

(B) St. Joe 61, St. Al 48

A long battle with the referee’s whistle, their own sloppy play and Madison-St. Joe proved to be too much for St. Aloysius to overcome.

The Flashes had 20 turnovers in the first half, committed 12 fouls to St. Joe’s four, and were outscored 12-2 in the last four minutes of the second quarter. Two St. Al starters fouled out late in the game, and two others finished with four fouls.

“The fouls definitely hurt us, and just not mentally being there in the first half. We outplayed them the whole second half … and we played well the first quarter,” Hayden said. “The second quarter, again, it’s just mental. We’re making the same mistakes that we made last year.”

Despite the Flashes’ troubles, they took advantage of poor shooting by St. Joe (3-0) and managed to keep the game close until late in the fourth quarter.

John David Hosemann hit a 3-pointer with 6:14 to play in the fourth quarter to trigger a 9-4 St. Al spurt that cut St. Joe’s lead to 50-46 with 3:07 remaining.

That was as close as the Flashes (0-2) could get, though. Anthony Rector, who led St. Al with 18 points, fouled out and fellow guard Drew Mazzanti followed two minutes later.