Boy’s Basketball Downs Salem at Collingswood Holiday Tournament

Following a brief break, the Pirates boy’s basketball team took on Salem in the first round of the Collingswood Holiday Tournament Tuesday morning and came away with a 48-45 victory.

Cinnaminson is now 3-0 on the year and will play in the championship round of the tourney on Wednesday at 2pm against New Foundations Charter (PA).

Salem opened the game on a 6-0 run before the Pirates pulled within two to trail 8-6 after the first quarter.

The second quarter was a much different story for the Pirates, who scored 18 points to Salem’s 16 and enter the locker room tied at 24 at the break.

“That team averages 90-something points per game,” head coach Mike Fries said. “To hold them to 45 points is phenomenal defensively. Our style is run, run, run. That’s how we get easy looks.”

Conor Bresnahan scored 11 of his game-high 15 points in the first half.

Cinnaminson came out firing on all cylinders in the third, building an 11-point lead 36-25 thanks to a 12-1 run. The Pirates led 38-31 after three.

“We went over press break all week in practice,” Bresnahan said. “They reminded us of that and to move the ball to break the press because we weren’t doing that.”

“We definitely like to run this year. Whenever we take a lead in the game, we like to get out and run on the break.”

The fourth quarter was much closer than anyone would have liked, with Salem cutting the Pirates lead down to as close as three points.

“Second half, we changed it up,” Fries said. “We went to a 3-2, trap in the corners, just to pick up the tempo a little. We started getting steals against the fast breaks and easy looks. We got up on them a little bit, at the most 11 points. We just wanted to pick up the tempo a little more on the defensive end.”

The Pirates shot 8-of-14 from the foul line for the contest, while Salem shot 2-of-11, missing key free throws down the stretch.

“Free throws win and lose ballgames,” Fries said. “I will mention that to the guys. They (Salem) shot 2-of-11.”

Salem had the ball with 7.4 seconds left and called three timeouts in a row after broken plays, but could not draw up a game-tying shot as the Pirates held on to win 48-45.

Cinnaminson was outscored 14-10 in the final quarter, but did not waiver, especially on defense.

“It does a lot for our confidence,” Bresnahan said. “We are 3-0. That’s a big confidence booster. The last two games have been really close, so once it gets closer to playoff time it will help us a lot.”

Devon Taylor finished with 10. Pat McCarthy, Rich Rickus and JP Rickus all finished with six points. All of JP Rickus’ six points came in the fourth quarter, with four of them from the foul line.

“That kid (JP Rickus) is basketball. All he does is watch videos of basketball,” Fries said. “The leagues he was in the past few years he was playing against the tougher competition. You can tell right away, coming into the varsity level, he’s confident.”

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Conor Bresnahan – 15
Devon Taylor – 10
Pat McCarthy – 6
Rich Rickus – 6
JP Rickus – 6
Kyle Roberts-DeLoach – 4
Sean Christian – 1