St. Joe's 1st Win at Timon since 2020
A matchup of two Monsignor Martin basketball powers saw the St. Joe’s Marauders take down the Bishop Timon-St. Jude Tigers 80-70 on Friday night.
It was the first win for the Marauders’ program at Bishop Timon in five years, and coach Cooper Calzonetti was proud of his team’s effort against a school that has won the MMAA title in each of the last two seasons.
“I think this has become one of the better rivalries in Western New York,” Calzonetti said.
“It’s always been Joe's-Canisius, or Timon-Canisius, but I think this is right up there too.
Jason Rowe’s done a great job in his time here at Timon, and in my time at Joe's, going back to being an assistant for (the late) Gabe Michael, I've never won here. So this was good for me on a personal level.
“But we played on Tuesday and then we had our best two practices of the year on Wednesday and Thursday. So I knew we were going to play like this on Wednesday night and I was really excited for our guys. They played their butts off, and I knew it was going to be a game of runs, but I thought we weathered the storm a little bit. We punched back, we were ready to go and I'm really proud of our guys.”
Heading into the evening, the Tigers had won seven of their last eight matchups with the Marauders. Yet from the opening tipoff, St. Joe’s had the upper-hand courtesy of a 22-13 lead in the first quarter.
The second stanza of play saw the Tigers battle back to tie the score via a 10-0 run and slowing down St. Joe’s with a zone defense. But Jaymeir Goosby, who had 10 points of his own in the first quarter, scored the same amount in the second and got an “and-one” to end the half with a 40-31 lead for the Marauders.
In the second half – and especially in the fourth quarter – the Tigers kept coming back. The Marauders’ lead was cut in half at one point in the final frame, but whenever Timon could see light at the end of the tunnel, St. Joe’s would snuff it out courtesy of Goosby. He scored seven more points in the third quarter and six in the fourth for 33 points on the night.
Nate Blenman added 15 of his own, Mekhi Gidney had 11 and Gionni Zelasko chipped in with 10 to round out St. Joe’s scoring. Timon was led by Nakyhi Harris and Mike Gibson, who had 25 and 15 points respectively.
Calzonetti also took the time after the game to soak in the atmosphere at Bishop Timon.
The Tigers’ home court is combined with the school’s auditorium, which makes for a quirky and intimate setting.
“This is one of the best places to play basketball in Buffalo,” Calzonetti said. “The court, the seats and the people are right on top of you. I feel like I owe the refs wine or something, because I was all over them tonight and they were just right in front of us. But it was fun, this is a great place to play and I'm just really proud of our guys tonight.”
Yet the Marauders’ coach knows that there will be a quick turnaround, so there won’t be much time for his squad to relax.
“We’re going to practice tomorrow because we have a really tough schedule coming up,” Calzonetti said. “We’ve got The Park School on Tuesday and Canisius on Saturday, and then we maybe have one day to practice to get ready for Health Sciences. And these games are piling up on top of each other.
“Tomorrow's going to be a light practice and I told these guys it's pretty much optional, but I'll have the whole team in the gym because these guys want to be together. They want to be good, they want to get the work in and it's showing. I think that's why we'll have so many guys go play in college because they're already prepared like guys at that level. So we just need to be ready every single day and just keep going and keep pushing.”
Photo Gallery Courtesy of Shawn Turri/WNYAthletics