James Mueller ’19

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After a slow start to district play, the Strake Jesuit Crusaders gained much needed momentum after knocking off George Ranch, 69-59, Tuesday night.

The Crusaders came into the game with a defensive minded game-plan of keeping the Longhorns’ best scorers in check, while making sure their secondary players did not have a major impact scoring.

Head coach Dominic Amorosa thought that the Crusaders did a good job with this task as they were able to string together a few stops defensively late in the fourth quarter.

“We needed to make sure that their secondary guys didn’t impact the game scoring,” Amorosa said. “We knew 21 and 23 were going to score points but we made sure their others guys didn’t score in the second half.”

Offensively, the Crusaders were led by junior guard Luke Thorburn who had 14 points and senior guard Jordan Johnson who scored 20 points, including two clutch free throws in crunch time.

The team hopes to use this win as a momentum builder for the rest of district play.

Luke Thorburn credits part of the team’s success to having an attacking mindset and a sense of urgency coming into the game. He believes that the team needs to — and will — keep that same mindset and sense of urgency to continue being successful throughout the rest of district play.

“We are going to keep the same mindset and sense of urgency we showed tonight because we know we know we’re a better team than our record shows,” Thorburn said. “We’re going to keep grinding every day in practice so that we go into the games prepared.”

The Crusaders are now 3-3 in district and will look to improve upon their record this Friday when they take on Alief Taylor.

Video: Click here to watch senior Liam Dillon dunk it!