Loyola’s Jordan Kwiecinski crashed to the floor late in the first quarter, then teammate Vaughn Pemberton did the same in the fourth. Both stayed down for a while before gingerly getting up and walking off the court.
It was that kind of rough-and-tumble night at Leo, where the Ramblers gutted out a 49-39 Catholic League win on Wednesday.
Kwiecinski just missed a double-double with 10 points and nine rebounds for Loyola (5-0, 1-0 Catholic Blue), which needed three quarters to jolt Leo (1-3, 0-1 Catholic White) out of its preferred slow pace.
“It’s hard to prepare for playing at Leo,” Kwiecinski said. “I think we did a good job of handling the pressure in the second half -- grabbing the loose balls and rebounds and out-toughing them.”
Ramblers coach Tom Livatino came away with the same opinion.
”Leo ... I think is the toughest place to play,” Livatino said. “We knew it was going to be very physical. We weren’t up to the challenge in the first half, quite honestly. They were clearly the more physical team, the tougher team. In the second half, our guys responded.”
Pemberton stood out in that regard. The top running back for Loyola’s football team kept driving to the basket like he plowed through opposing defenses in the fall, scoring all nine of his points after halftime.
He hit the court hard after his last basket and was wearing an ice pack on his right shoulder after the game.
“What Vaughn realized is we wanted him to be a bull,” Livatino said. “In the first half, he was a perimeter player. He was a raging bull in the second half and hopefully he’s OK.”
Down 34-28 early in the fourth quarter, Loyola went on a game-ending 21-5 run.
After Kwiecinski’s putback tied the score, Matt Enghauser scored on consecutive drives to give Loyola a 40-36 lead with 4:05 left.
On the other end of the court, junior guard Jalen Axibal helped get Leo playing a little faster than it preferred.
“We got a really good boost from Vaughn and a really good boost from Jalen,” Livatino said. “We didn’t have any juice so we needed to speed them up and get the ball out of (Terrance Ford’s) hands. He’s really good.
“We forced some turnovers and just started playing with some emotion.”
Ford and Kevin Drumgoole scored 10 points each for Leo, while Kendale Anderson had nine in his first game of the season after missing time for personal reasons.
Defending the 6-7 Anderson is always a challenge.
“Especially on offensive rebounds,” Kwiecinski said. “He crashes really hard. But I think having another post player in there (twin brother Bennett Kwiecinski) is helpful for guarding him.”
The slower style will be Leo’s new normal, coach Jamal Thompson said.
“That’s the way we’ve got to play,” he said. “We don’t have the same personnel we had last year. We’ve got to dictate the tempo.
“We dictated it for three quarters. We didn’t dictate it in the fourth quarter.”
