Patriots beat Tigers to move into first

EL CAJON – In a battle for first place in the Eastern League, the Christian Patriots took on the Morse Tigers and without their senior leader Nashom Carter out due to illness were able to come away with the 59-43 victory.So in the place of Carter was his good friend Dominic Safarta, who stepped up to fill the shoes and indeed he did.

However, it wasn’t easy as both squads committed plenty of turnovers in the first quarter but both teams would eventually settle down and match each other shot for shot.

For the Patriots, Safarta would take the long-range shooting duties while Jordan Gaines would come up with the defensive effort.

It was these efforts that were able to propel the Patriots into the intermission with a slim three-point lead.

Unfortunately of the consequences of the close game by both squads was that they were plagued by foul trouble on key members.

In the second half, both teams came out trying to run but unfortunately due to foul trouble both were limited.

One of the biggest fouls came midway thru the third quarter when junior Jackson Larsen was called for his fourth foul.

However, despite the foul trouble of one of their stars picked up the slack as Christian West came into the contest and took over.

Despite the foul trouble, the Patriots maintained their advantage as they took a five-point lead into the final stanza and a cool thing occurred when the third period ended with the Patriots players coming off the court shouting “It’s closing time.”

In the fourth quarter, Christian did just that as West dominated in the post with a fake of a defender and taking the ball to the basket and getting the score and a foul.

After the three-point play, the defense for the Patriots took over as they jumped into their full court press which really did damage to the Tigers as they picked up a couple of steals which led to easy points.

After the pressure defense, the duo of Safarta and West were able to do the rest of the damage taming the Tigers en route to the victory.