 High School Basketball:
Patience Keeps Camden Catholic Undefeated Against Eastern
Tuesday, February 5, 2002
By Jerome Michaels
SJSports Special Correspondent
There's a basketball game that's coming to town that has been leaving most fans scratching their heads wondering why they cannot get tickets to attend the event. Some of you are probably thinking of the NBA All-Star weekend taken place at the First Union Center and the Convention Center in Philly. Well, the hottest ticket on this day involved the Irish from Camden Catholic going up against the Vikings from Eastern in a boy's basketball meeting. For those fans turned away from this event, they would not see the battle between two previous undefeated teams from the Olympic Conference. Camden Catholic showed great determination and patience to post a 67-58 victory at Eastern High School.
If you haven't gotten the chance to see either of these two teams play this season, you've been missing a lot. Before this game, both of the boy's basketball teams have been able to roll threw their division with ease. Some teams tend to not play their best game when they are going up against a weaker team on their schedule. But that does not seem to be the case for Eastern and Camden Catholic as both teams have a deep bench to replace any player not giving their all on the court.
 Well the shooting tandem of Lance Evans and Dominick Mejia for the Vikings put on a demonstration of how to make shots from the perimeter. Both of these players were making their shots as if they were throwing rocks into a pond. Eastern gave the home crowd a lot to cheer about early in this game as they jumped out to a 12-point lead in the first quarter. Camden Catholic would not let the capacity crowd affect their game plan as they settled down and ended the initial quarter down by the score of 18-11.
The Irish also have role players on their team that really understand the game of basketball. Basketball is divided into four quarter and the game is not decided until each quarter has been completed. Eric Cangelosi and his brother Nick were the players leading the way past Eastern in the second quarter. The Fighting Irish outscored Eastern by a 21-9 margin to lead at the half by 5 points.
The second half of this game did not start off like the first quarter for Eastern. The Irish was able to control the pace of this game to hold off their opponent for the road victory and their sixteen straight win. Eric Cangelosi finished with a game high 27 points, Nick Cangelosi added 12 points and Will Bakanowsky chipped in 10 points for the Fighting Irish. Eastern was lead by Dominick Mejia's team high 23 points while Lance Evans added 19 points.
Photos by Forrest Robleto
    
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High School Basketball:
