Martin's 31 leads Cadets past Ireton 62-48

St John’s Chris Martin was a one-man wrecking crew for the Cadets Tuesday with 31 points in a 62-48 win over Bishop Ireton in Alexandria. The hot shooting Martin scored 9 of the first 13 St Johns points in the first quarter and had 21 of 33 Cadet halftime points. “We played hard” said Ireton skipper, Neil Berkman, “but when one guy gets that hot there sometimes isn’t much you can do.”

Ireton did play hard and stayed close throughout the first quarter with defensive effort. The redbirds couldn’t buy a basket in the second stanza however, managing only 8 points to go to the locker down 33-21.

The drought continued in the third quarter as the Johnnies continued a smothering defensive effort and with 3:40 remaining in the period Patrick Hanafin made a free throw to get the Cards on the board, down 38-22. Ireton then went on an 11-6 run to close the gap to 44-33 starting the 4th quarter.

The Cardinals shot the ball well from the charity stripe and free throws by Hanafin and sophomore Marcus Hayes drew the Cardinals to 46-38 with 5 minutes left in the contest. With just over 3 minutes to play and the Cardinals down 7 at 48-41, Martin went back to work, hitting a jumper to push the lead to 50-41. Junior Julian DeBose turned a steal into a highlight reel dunk and the lead jumped to 52-41. Marcus Hayes hit a three-pointer shortly after to pull Ireton to 53-46, but only 90 seconds remained. The Cardinals would foul Martin three consecutive possessions and the hot shooting Cadet made 6 straight free throws to pull St Johns away.

The Cardinals host Good Counsel Friday at 6pm for Senior Night. It is a varsity only affair to end the regular season, this a rescheduled contest from the snow earlier. The Falcons had previously scheduled freshmen and junior varsity contests to preclude the normal WCAC tripleheader. Playoffs in the WCAC begin the first week in March with the Cardinals headed for a 7-10 matchup to open the tournament on the road.