Mitchell in a giving mood

Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2005

Reflecting back on his team’s performance at the recent Bishop Ireton (Va.) tournament, Barrie boys basketball coach Jack Mitchell decided to pull his team out of last weekend’s Bullis Holiday Classic and made arrangements for the Kamit Institute of Magnificent Achievement (KIMA) Charter School to take his team’s place.

Mitchell’s squad lost, 71-41, to Ireton and 69-41 to Friendship Edison (D.C.), while KIMA took Ireton to the wire before falling in the Ireton tournament final.

‘‘When I thought about that tournament on Sunday and Monday [of last week], I didn’t feel very comfortable with our output,” Mitchell said. ‘‘My kids are kind of disappointed that this was taken away from them, but not everything can be given to you. I’m interested to watch them respond, if they step up to it or not compete. There are a lot of lessons that came out of this weekend. I hated to back out, but I felt good putting a team like KIMA [into the tournament].”

KIMA responded with a 71-61 win over Notre Dame to open the Bullis tournament before falling to eventual champion Towson Catholic and Spalding to finish fourth. Mitchell was told by the KIMA coaching staff that three college coaches approached them about their players.

Barrie enters this weekend’s Pallotti Tournament with a 4-3 record.

Hibbs gets a rude welcome into WCAC

Good Counsel boys basketball coach Michael Hibbs’ first game against Washington Catholic Athletic Conference competition was not a pretty one.

Playing Friday night against perennial powerhouse DeMatha, the defending league champions, the Falcons fell behind, 10-0, to start the game, trailed 41-25 at halftime and eventually lost 77-47 to drop to 1-5 overall and 0-1 in the WCAC.

‘‘We’ve had poor starts in almost every one of our games,” Hibbs said. ‘‘Against a great team like that, you can’t overcome that kind of start, but we kind of did. We cut the lead to 12 midway through the third quarter, which I thought was a valiant effort by our guys.”

Nigel Munson led the Stags (7-0) with 20 points, and Austin Freeman added 13 points.

Senior guard Erik Sasser led the Falcons with 11 points, followed by senior forward Drew Gloster with 10. Sophomore center Brian Freeman chipped in seven.

Good Counsel will play its second league game Friday against Carroll and then head to Dallas to play in the Coca-Cola Classic, a three-day event beginning Dec. 28.